question

You're attempting to order the data in your query. You need to define something to order it by. From the example above, can you order by the first column? It looks to be ordered in the fashion you need. The query would look something like this (but with your column and table names, since I don't know what they are, I made something up). SELECT a.Description FROM dbo.TableA AS a ORDER BY a.ID ASC This query will retrieve the description column from the table, but it will order it by the first column (ID). It will do this in an ascending manner (ASC), counting up.

Here's an alternative approach. If you've got a unique value to track a particular patient through this system (eg a PatientID), then you might consider this approach: -- set up your data in a table variable for me to show the concept -- note the additional "PatID" field. declare @VitalData table (PatID integer, LineID integer, StrangeCode varchar(20), Description varchar(50), EntryDate datetime) insert into @VitalData values (1, 316, '0005B7DCB817', 'VitalsAckByEmr', '2012-03-20 12:07:16.547'), (1, 376, '0005B7DCBB3C', 'PatientSelected', '2012-03-20 12:28:26.723'), (1, 388, '0005B7DCB9A2', 'VitalsAcquired', '2012-03-20 12:29:51.263') -- Use a PIVOT table to build a resultset that can be worked against SELECT PatID, VitalsAckByEmr, PatientSelected, VitalsAcquired FROM ( SELECT PatID, Description, EntryDate FROM @VitalData ) AS src PIVOT ( MAX(EntryDate) FOR Description IN ([VitalsAckByEmr], [PatientSelected], [VitalsAcquired]) ) as pvt That brings back the following results: PatID VitalsAckByEmr PatientSelected VitalsAcquired 1 2012-03-20 12:07:16.547 2012-03-20 12:28:26.723 2012-03-20 12:29:51.263 If you want to specifically select those PatientID records that don't match the above process, I've added the following records to the @VitalData table: (99, 990, 'foo', 'VitalsAckByEmr', '2012-06-01 01:01:01'), (99, 991, 'bar', 'PatientSelected', '2012-06-01 01:02:03'), (99, 992, 'baz', 'VitalsAcquired', '2012-06-01 00:00') and you can add a `WHERE` clause to the outer `SELECT`, for example: where (PatientSelected < VitalsAckByEmr) OR (PatientSelected > VitalsAcquired) and this time, we get: PatID VitalsAckByEmr PatientSelected VitalsAcquired 99 2012-06-01 01:01:01.000 2012-06-01 01:02:03.000 2012-06-01 00:00:00.000 Just an idea, mind...

This might work but would need testing to make sure it scales past 2 records... IF OBJECT_ID('Patients') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE Patients GO CREATE TABLE Patients ( PatID INTEGER , LineID INTEGER , StrangeCode VARCHAR(20) , Description VARCHAR(50) , EntryDate DATETIME ) -- set up your data in a table variable for me to show the concept -- note the additional "PatID" field. * - borrowed from Thomas' answer ;) INSERT INTO Patients VALUES -- Good Row ( 1, 316, '0005B7DCB817', 'VitalsAckByEmr', '2012-03-20 12:07:16.547' ), ( 1, 376, '0005B7DCBB3C', 'PatientSelected', '2012-03-20 12:28:26.723' ), ( 1, 388, '0005B7DCB9A2', 'VitalsAcquired', '2012-03-20 12:29:51.263' ), -- Bad Row ( 2, 396, '0005B7DCB817', 'VitalsAckByEmr', '2012-03-20 12:07:16.547' ), ( 2, 476, '0005B7DCBB3C', 'VitalsAcquired', '2012-03-20 12:28:26.723' ), ( 2, 588, '0005B7DCB9A2', 'PatientSelected', '2012-03-20 12:29:51.263' ) ;WITH datas AS ( SELECT lineid , [p].[Description] , ROW_NUMBER() OVER ( PARTITION BY p.[PatID] ORDER BY [p].[EntryDate] ) AS r_n FROM [dbo].[Patients] AS p ) SELECT [p].[PatID] , [d].[Description] , [d].[r_n] FROM [datas] AS d INNER JOIN [dbo].[Patients] AS p ON [d].lineid = p.[LineID] WHERE ( [d].[Description] != 'VitalsAckByEmr' AND [d].r_n = 1 ) OR ( [d].[Description] != 'PatientSelected' AND [d].r_n = 2 ) OR ( [d].[Description] != 'VitalsAcquired' AND [d].r_n = 3 )