I think it helps, but let me rephrase to make sure. No, first let me ask something I should have asked at first: Would I be right in the following?

• SCN: "Special-Care Nursery"
• NICU: "Neonatal Intensive-Care Unit", or perhaps just "Natal...".
• What is the relationship between the SCN and the NICU? Are they the same thing? I ask because you want to know about admissions to the NICU, but this worksheet seems to have data only on the SCN; if they're not the same thing then I'm missing a datum.
• The contents of Sheet1 are a nightly census of patients in the SCN, each patient taking one row. The date of each census is in column J; the 01-01 census is in rows 4-10, the next night's census is in rows 11-17, and so on. Therefore a patient who was in the SCN on several consecutive nights will appear that many times in the worksheet.

Now let's return to my mistake of yesterday. I've just reread your initial explanation, and if from now on I may treat "SCN" and "NICU" as synonymous, then I think I understand it better. Let's test my genius with a few questions design to humiliate me if I'm still not getting it:

1. Patient 2437187 appears on four rows, ie the censi of 01-01 through -04. How many times do you want this patient to be counted for this requirement? My answer: 0. The patient was admitted the previous month, and therefore is not to be counted at all in admission count for 2013.
2. Patient 2605119 was admitted 2013-06-28 and appears in every census but one from there to 2013-09-20; 84 appearances, missing only 08-07. That out-and-in is apparently not to be counted as a new admission; the Admit date is listed as 06-28 throughout. Should be counted as 1.
3. I couldn't find an example of this one, but let's pretend: Patient 9999999 was admitted, according to column C, on 2013-02-13 and appeared in the next 13 censi, the last one being 02-25. The same patient number appears again with a new admission date two weeks later, 03-11 through 03-17, an 8-night stay. Since there are two admission dates for this patient, it should be counted as 2 for this exercise.

If all of this is correct, then what you want, I think, is a process like— No, wait. I can think of a couple of different ways to do that, but let's not get into that until I know whether I'm on the right track. Does it sound like I understand the requirement, yet, or am I still missing something?