PORT ANGELES – Officials at Olympic Medical Center said they are confident they provide excellent cardiac care despite a government report saying the hospital’s mortality rate among Medicare heart failure patients is worse than the national rate.
“We’re very comfortable that our heart patients are being well cared for,” said Rhonda Curry, hospital spokeswoman, on Friday.
According to the report, which was released online Thursday, 35 of the 4,807 hospitals surveyed nationwide had a higher 30-day mortality rate than the national rate of 11 percent for heart failure patients on Medicare.
OMC was the only one out of the 86 hospitals surveyed in the state to fall into the “worse than” category.
Nationwide, 38 hospitals had a better heart failure mortality rate than the nation as a whole.
The statistics were for July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006.
