Franklin Hills Health & Rehab Center

Although we graded this nursing home incredibly poorly overall, it received a decent short-term care grade this year. We gave it a B- in that area, which was the closest thing to a bright spot we can find for this facility. In crafting our short-term care grades, we quantify the nursing home's skilled nursing services, such as those performed by registered nurses, speech therapists, physical therapists and other types of skilled professionals. Our purpose is to create a scale for sizing up the rehabilitation services of different facilities. We were surprised to find that this nursing home was below average in the two key staffing areas we focus on. The facility supplied fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other facilities. Finally, we assessed the number of residents who were able to return to the community from this facility. We found that 0 percent of this facility's patients returned home. At most facilities, closer to half of their patients are able to return home so this figure is below average.

We were also surprised to find that this facility received a decent nursing grade this year. We gave it a grade of B- in that category. Nursing scores are mostly tied to a nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This facility provided just 0.3 hours of nursing care per resident per day. This is a relatively low total compared to most other facilities. Finally, we also looked at several nursing quality measures. While this nursing home got dinged a bit for nursing hours per resident, it excelled in some of these quality metrics. With fewer than five percent of its residents suffering from pressure ulcers, it did very well in this metric. This is generally a good indicator of quality nursing care. Pressure ulcers can often be prevented by providing better nursing care, such as having a policy of turning residents more frequently.

We also wanted to draw your attention to this nursing home's inspection grades where it received an F. This generally means we found some red flags on the inspection reports. For nursing homes with bad inspection ratings, you should focus on any severe deficiencies found on their inspection reports. This facility was assessed a category G through L deficiency, which are among the more serious deficiencies. These categories indicate that the deficiencies uncovered by the government inspectors had the potential to cause actual harm to residents. Lastly, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that this facility was assessed large government fines in recent years amounting to more than $100,000. This often signifies that a poor performance spanned more than one year.

The next area we analyzed is long-term care, where this nursing home received an abysmal score in this category also. Sadly, it received an F in this category, which is obviously somewhat alarming. In a long-term care environment, the nursing home's primary objective is to maintain patients' quality of life and keep them safe. On top of considering the amount of care provided by aids and other staff, we also looked at the number of residents vaccinated for pneumonia. This facility vaccinated 95.789474 percent of its patients. Surprisingly, this place was able to limit hospitalizations. With only 0 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, this facility had less hospitalizations than most nursing homes. Unfortunately, some of its other scores in the category weren't as favorable as these.