You are a midlevel manager at a major metropolitan hospital and are responsible for capturing and reporting statistics regarding the cost and quality of patient care. You believe in a strict interpretation when defining various reportable incidents; as a result, your hospital's rating on a number of quality issues has declined in the six months you have held the position. Your predecessor was more lenient and was inclined to let minor incidents go unreported or to classify some serious incidents as less serious. The quarterly quality meeting is next week, and you know that your reporting will be challenged by the chief of staff and other members of the quality review board. How should you prepare for this meeting? Should you defend your strict reporting procedures or revert to the former reporting process for the "sake of consistency in the numbers," as several people have urged?