Franklin General Hospital

To go along with a strong overall grade, we gave this nursing home a grade of A+ for inspections. Perhaps the most important factor we consider in calculating our inspection grades is deficiencies. These deficiencies can be found on a facility's inspection reports. Nursing homes with higher grades in this area most likely dodged the most severe deficiencies involving things like patient abuse. Fortunately, although this place had a few minor dings on its report, it had no severe deficiencies. Severe deficiencies are ones found in categories G through L. This tells you CMS didn't deem any of the deficiencies on this facility's report to pose an imminent threat to patient safety or health. Finally, this facility had no substantiated complaints this year from residents, which is an excellent sign.

We also awarded this facility a grade of A+ for its long-term care grade. When nursing homes receive this type of score in long-term care it is a good sign for patient care and indicates that the facility is well-staffed with nurses and aids. After considering the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we next considered the nursing home's vaccination data. This nursing home vaccinated 100 percent of its residents for pneumonia. Vaccines are vital to keeping patients out of the hospital. Clearly, this nursing home is doing something right in this area as it was able to keep its patients out of the hospital. In fact, it had less than one hospitalization per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low figure.

This first-rate facility also excelled in the area of nursing, where it received a grade of A+. Few nursing homes performed better in this area. In computing our nursing ratings, we factor in both the number of hours nurses spend with residents and the training levels of the nurses. This particular nursing home provided 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident per day. Finally, our nursing grades also factor in quality-based assessments, such as avoiding major falls. This facility performed well in this area. Avoiding major falls is typically a good indicator that a nursing home has reliable quality controls in place. Major falls can generally be prevented if more nurses aids and better safety protocols are in place.

The fourth area we looked at was short-term care, where this nursing home was awarded a B+. This rounded out a very impressive report card. Only a select few facilities received a B+ or higher in in each area we assessed. Our short-term care scores are meaningful for people requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation generally utilizes additional skilled nursing. This includes a broad spectrum of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other forms of therapy. Fortunately, it looks like this facility has registered nurses on staff. Not every facility employs these skilled professionals. However, based on the information they provided, they do not appear to employ physical therapists. The final statistic we assessed in this area is the percentage of residents who were able to leave the facility and return home. We discovered that 0 percent of this nursing home's patients were able to return home.