VERO BEACH — Officials at Indian River Medical Center, responding to an article published Monday in USA Today stating the hospital had a “worse than national rate” for heart failure, say the data used in the report was artificially inflated.
The article studied statistics provided by Medicare.gov’s hospital comparison, and focused on hospitals near tourist destinations. Given Indian River Medical Center’s proximity to top-notch beaches, the hospital was considered in the study.
Betsy Whisman, director of marketing and public relations at the hospital, pointed out he report covered a three-year period between 2005 and 2008, which is significant, according to Whisman, because it was during that time that VNA’s Hospice House was closed from the 2004 hurricanes and the hospital took in the hospice patients.
“Because these patients were included in our reporting,” Whisman said, “our mortality rate was artificially inflated.”
She went on to say that “in subsequent reports, our heart failure mortality rates were within expected norms.”
And while Indian River Medical Center boasts “The Heart Center affiliated with Duke University Health System,” Whisman said that heart failure is a medical condition and is not related to cardiac surgery.
According to Medicare.gov’s comparison, the Sebastian River Medical Center registered as “no different than the U.S. National Rate” in all three areas studied in the USA Today article – death rates for heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia patients.
IRMC also registered as “no different” from the national rate for heart attacks and pneumonia.
The rates are calculated as “30-day Mortality” – when patients die within 30 days of their admission to a hospital. The rates are adjusted to take into account how sick patients were before they were admitted, according to Medicare.gov.