A national study marked two Rio Grande Valley hospitals as low performing in their care of elderly Hispanic patients.

But administrators at those hospitals said researchers who conducted the study based their findings on old data. They contend their institutions are providing excellent care and are now meeting or exceeding federal standards.

The Harvard study looked at hospitals serving the highest number of Hispanic patients in the country in 2004. The study was released Tuesday in the March/April issue of Health Affairs medical policy journal.

Using data the hospitals submitted to Medicare, the study looked at the quality of care provided to patients who come in suffering from heart attacks, congestive heart failure and pneumonia.

According to the study, McAllen Medical Center and Starr County Memorial Hospital both failed to provide some basic measures for pneumonia more than half the time. The basic measures were identified as antibiotics, pneumococcal vaccinations and checking oxygen levels in the blood.

McAllen Medical Center met the measures 47 percent of the time and Starr County Memorial Hospital met them 46 percent of the time, according to the study.

Starr County Memorial Hospital also received a low score for its treatment of congestive heart failure, having only met satisfactory measures 44.3 percent of the time.

Harlingen Medical Center was the only hospital in the Valley to receive high marks from the Harvard study. That hospital was listed with an almost perfect score, a 99.9, for treating heart attack patients.

Administrators at McAllen Medical Center and Starr County Memorial Hospital said the low scores can be attributed to how they collected data in the past.

McAllen Medical Center, however, has upgraded its recording methods in the past two and a half years and has started educating patients more about smoking cessation, which can help prevent these conditions, said its chief operating officer, Rebecca Ryder.

The hospital is now educating all patients with heart and respiratory problems about the dangers of smoking and is treating patients with pneumonia and congestive heart failure in a timely fashion, based on national averages released about 15 months ago, Ryder said.

Thalia Muñoz, administrator of Starr County Memorial Hospital, said the hospital's performance rates have improved, though she did not provide updated statistics.

"We provide excellent care and are meeting standards," Muñoz said.

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Jennifer L. Berghom covers education and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4462.