Nhc Healthcare, Murfreesboro

Although we did not rate this facility well overall, we would like to note its decent inspections in recent years. We gave it a somewhat respectable grade of B- in this area. We would argue that one of the most critical factors in evaluating an inspection report is deficiencies. We especially focus on the severity of those deficiencies. While this place had some deficiencies on its inspection report, none of them were serious based on CMS' deficiency scale. Finally, CMS flagged this nursing home for possible abuse or neglect. This is not what you want to see. We advise you to direct your search elsewhere.

We awarded this facility a respectable grade in the area of nursing as well, with a grade of B-. Our nursing rating is primarily tied to the nursing home's level of nurse staffing. This facility provides only 0.4 hours of nursing care per resident daily. This is a somewhat alarming figure which is well below average. Despite having low quantities of nursing care, this facility actually fared better in some of the quality measures we looked at. It scored well in terms of avoiding pressure ulcers and major falls. We consider these areas to be measures of the quality of nursing care. In many cases, the quality of nursing care is every bit as important as the quantity of hours of care offered.

This nursing home's next best category was short-term care. We gave it a grade of B- in this area. This is basically a middle of the pack score in this area. Short-term care grades are vital for people requiring rehabilitation. Rehabilitation usually utilizes higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing means a broad spectrum of nursing services, ranging from registered nurses to physical and respiratory therapists, as well as other types of therapy. We found that this facility was below average in the two key staffing areas we assessed. It offered fewer physical therapist and registered nurse hours per resident than most other nursing homes. It is important to determine whether this is adversely impacting the quality of care. Finally, we looked at the number of patients who were able to return to the community from this nursing home. We found that 6 percent of this facility's residents returned home. At most nursing homes, closer to half of their residents are able to return home so this figure is below average.

The last category we analyzed was long-term care. This facility was given a B- for the category. For patients looking for a permanent residence as opposed to rehabilitation, long-term care grades are an important measure. After considering the quantity of care provided by nurses and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination records. We were pleased to learn that this facility vaccinated 97.87234 percent of its residents against pneumonia. Lastly, this nursing home was also able to limit hospitalizations. In fact, it had only 0.02 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days, which is an impressively low number.