The purpose of this study was to identify important items from the medical records to be used in the standardized discharge abstract. Common items were identified by analyzing medical records from the 11 largest hospitals in Seoul. Non-common items were identified by a questionnaire survey from the directors of medical record departments of 152 teaching hospitals. The results of research was follows; 1. Thirty eight common items were included in the analyzed sheet of 11 hospitals. 2. Eighty two non-common items were identified from the analyzed. Of these,10 items were found to be important items for the discharge abstract. 3. Another 26(half) or 18(first quarter) important non-common items were identified from the survey. 4. It was notified in the non-common standardized items group that the importance of some items like the patient's occupation, underlying cause of death, nosocomial infection, complications, house staff code in charge of completing records, and items concerning quality improvement showed difference by the number of beds. The importance of house staff code who is responsible for completion of the record also showed statistically significant difference by the number of beds per medical record professional and by regions. The item of the types of nosocomial infection also showed statistically significant difference between the regions. Most hospitals obtain a lot of medical information from the computerized discharge abstract. One of the results of the study showed that the concerned sheet can housed as both the data for the medical insurance claims and the basic data for medical quality improvement. Therefore, the discharge abstract should be regarded as the most necessary sheet to be standardized. It was found that 92.8% of the directors of medical record departments of nationwide teaching hospitals acknowledged the necessity of standardization of medical record data set.