Hospital Officials Take Issue With Mortality Report : Administrators Call Data Simplistic, Affirm Their Faith in Quality of Care

Administrators at Valley-area hospitals cited by a federal agency as having unusually high mortality rates said Thursday that the study was misleading because the data is too simplistic and that their hospitals are providing quality health care.

“It’s really misleading to draw any conclusions, good or bad,” said Janice Seib, a spokeswoman for Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Panorama City, which had an apparently high mortality rate among pneumonia patients.

On Wednesday, the federal Health Care Financing Administration made public a report identifying 269 hospitals across the country whose Medicare patients died at unusually high or low rates from a variety of conditions.

Included were eight Valley-area hospitals: Burbank Community Hospital, Granada Hills Community Hospital, Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Panorama City, Panorama City Community Hospital, Serra Memorial Health Center in Sun Valley, Valley Park Medical Center in Canoga Park, Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys and Simi Valley Community Hospital.

But three listings--Serra Memorial, Simi Valley Community and Valley Park--were based on the deaths of only one or two patients.

Accompanied by Caution

In releasing the previously confidential information, federal officials and health care researchers cautioned that conclusions cannot be drawn from the figures. Consumer groups, however, welcomed the release of the data and urged the release of more information in the future.

The study indicated that Granada Hills Community Hospital had the highest mortality rate among Valley hospitals and the fifth-highest rate in Southern California. The Granada Hills hospital admitted 2,236 Medicare patients in 1984. The predicted death rate was 5.3%, but 8.3% died.

Barbara Wexler, hospital spokeswoman, said the figures were unfair because a significant part of the hospital’s patients are terminally ill. Wexler said the 201-bed hospital is renowned for its “Symptom Control Program,” created in 1979 to care for the physical, emotional and mental needs of dying patients.

“If the program is designed to treat terminal illness, people die. . . . That is the reality of the program,” she said.

Jurral Rhee, administrator at Burbank Community Hospital, also criticized the HCFA study. The report indicated the Burbank hospital had a high mortality rate among patients requiring heart pacemaker implants and knee and hip surgery. Of 15 pacemaker patients, 20% died. The predicted death rate was 2.9%. Also, 11.7% of 17 knee and hip patients died, when the predicted death rate was 3.3%

‘15 Not Valid Sample’

“That’s not a valid sample of anything. Fifteen is not a valid sample,” Rhee said. “The mortality is something that follows because of their age.” However, Rhee said the hospital plans to conduct an audit of the mortality cases in those two categories.

At Kaiser, 18.7% of 75 pneumonia patients died, whereas the predicted death rate was 9%. On the other hand, only 11.9% of the heart attack patients died, although the predicted rate was 20.5%.

Seib, the Kaiser spokeswoman, and officials from the other hospitals said the data was too limited to reveal reliable information about quality of health care.

“We feel there are numerous factors that explain the findings at that particular hospital,” Seib said. Those include the patients’ age, their socioeconomic background and the cause of the ailments.

At the Panorama City Community Hospital, 21.9% of the 64 pneumonia patients died, whereas the predicted death rate was 11%. Charlotte Weissman, a hospital spokeswoman, said many of the patients came from convalescent homes and had many problems that contributed to their deaths.

“It has nothing to do with the quality of care at the hospital,” Weissman said.

Kurt Hoekendorf, a spokesman for Simi Valley Community Hospital, also said that many of the patients who died had multiple health problems. Of eight gastrointestinal bleeding patients, 25% died. The predicted rate was 5.3%.

Unit Called One of Finest

At Valley Presbyterian, 11.5% of the 26 pacemaker patients died, contrasted with the predicted death rate of 2.7%.

Tim Bradley, a Valley Presbyterian spokesman, said the hospital’s cardiac unit is one of the state’s finest. He questioned how the federal agency arrived at its figures.

“We welcome consumer curiosity and inquiries about this,” Bradley said.

Serra Memorial and Valley Park were listed in the prostate surgery category. In each case, one patient died--out of a total of two treated at Serra and 10 at Valley Park.

Officials of those hospitals could not be reached for comment.