UCI Officials Host Tour of Medical Center : Public relations: Event is part of effort to restore image of Orange facility, tarnished by its association with scandal-plagued fertility clinic and by a recent accreditation review.

Battered by the scandal at their fertility clinic, officials at UCI Medical Center hosted a media tour Monday in hopes of mending the hospital’s once robust image and defended it against a recent accreditation review.

“We want people to understand the Center for Reproductive Health is a small component of what we do here,” said Dr. Thomas C. Cesario, dean of UC Irvine’s medical school. “We have been under the microscope. . . . We are anxious to repair our image.”

Under the supervision of the center’s top officials, doctors and nurses showed the medical facility’s best face to reporters.

The two-hour event featured a behind-the-scenes tour of the center’s emergency room, oncology unit and intensive-care ward, and a look at the latest medical technology.

Apparently part of a new push by the university to be more forthcoming, the tour followed a faculty briefing last week by UC Irvine Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening. The chancellor is scheduled to hold similar talks with the medical center staff Thursday, officials said.

Wilkening came under fire when for weeks she refused to publicly discuss allegations of human egg theft, research misconduct and money skimming at the once highly acclaimed fertility clinic. The clinic’s three doctors have denied any wrongdoing.

University officials said they had wanted to be more accessible all along but were constrained by the seven different investigations being conducted into the scandal.

“We’ve always wanted to be open about it,” UC Irvine spokeswoman Fran Tardiff said.

At a question-and-answer session after the tour, the center’s administrators downplayed the significance of a national accreditation evaluation that gave the center below-average ratings in 10 of 56 areas. Among other things, investigators found after reviewing 14 cases in November that some patients failed to receive treatment as ordered and were not properly informed of alternatives to surgery.

Also, the report by the California Department of Health Services, the California Medical Assn. and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations said that in the 14 cases medical center departments communicated poorly with one another and treatment sometimes did not correspond to patient needs.

But Cesario and the acting executive director of the center, Wendell C. Brase, said Monday that all problems cited in the 48-page report have been corrected. Many of the difficulties stemmed from inadequate clerical procedures, they said.

“If there was a real problem,” Cesario said, “we wouldn’t have gotten full accreditation.”

University officials pointed out that only 8% of the 5,300 accredited hospitals emerge from the review process with no low marks.

“It’s invariable that a review will bring about a series of corrective actions,” added Cesario. “Especially at a teaching institution like ours, there are likely to be areas we can improve.”

Also, officials said that Mark R. Laret, the highest-ranking non-physician at UCLA Medical Center, may assume duties at the UCI center in September if he is approved by the UC regents later this month.

Laret would replace former UCI Medical Center Executive Director Mary Piccione, who--along with her deputy, Herb Spiwak--was fired by the university last month for the handling of the scandal at the fertility clinic.