In today’s press briefing at Englewood Hospital, representatives of Valley and Englewood disputed statistics Hackensack UMC presented in its application for a certificate of need to open a 128-bed hospital at the Pascack Valley site, which Hackensack currently operates as a satellite emergency department.

The opposing hospitals rejected Hackensack’s argument that including patients who are under observation, but not yet admitted, raises the hospital census by 12 percent, thus supporting Hackensack UMC’s view that additional patient capacity is needed in the county. Valley and Englewood content observation patients add only 1 percent or 2 percent to the patient census.

“The bed need study that we conducted again shows that opening another hospital in the most overbedded county in the state makes no sense,” said Valley CEO Audrey Meyers.

But Hackensack disputed such findings.

“As stated in the certificate of need application, which we have made public since the day of its filing, both Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank concurred that the average observation rate is approximately 12 percent nationally,” said Hackensack spokeswoman Nancy Radwin said. “The actual observation rate at HUMC exceeds 12 percent. In addition, a survey of 29 hospitals by the Delaware Valley Healthcare Council found a 15.8 percent rate of observation.”

“The historical data in the four consulting reports commissioned by Valley and Englewood are inconsistent from one report to another,” she said. “What is a fact is that in 2010 alone, Hackensack University Medical Center provided more charity care than Valley Hospital, Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, and Holy Name Medical Center, combined. Why did they commission four different reports on the same subject and three in the same year?”

Valley and Englewood have been fighting HUMC’s efforts to reopen Pascack Valley for years, a fight they said has cost them in the low six figures. And they said the financial health of their institutions is at stake: a second study estimated that reopening Pascack Valley would cost Valley $10 million to $24 million in revenue a year, and would cost Englewood between $7 million and $15 million.