Nashville, Murfreesboro VA Hospitals Rate Dismally in Secret Internal Report

MURFREESBORO, TN — Middle Tennessee's two veterans hospitals are among the lowest-rated in the country in a secret internal report from the Veterans Administration obtained by USA Today.

The VA uses a five-star system to rate its hospitals every quarter in an internal report, which the VA said is not a ranking system, but rather a method to determine which hospitals are improving and which are not. Overall, ten hospitals nationwide were rated one-star. Three of those were in Tennessee.

USA Today acquired the ratings for the fourth quarter of 2015, showing both the Nashville VA Hospital and the Alvin C. York Campus in Murfreesboro with one star, the lowest rating. The VA agreed to provide the rankings for the quarter ending June 30 for the hospitals with one and five star ratings in the 2015 report, which once again showed the Midstate facilities with one star. The VA hospital in Memphis was also rated one-star in both reports. The state's only other VA hospital, Mountain Home Medical Center in northeast Tennessee, received four stars in the 2015 report.

The VA determines the ratings for 146 of its medical centers each quarter and bases them on dozens of factors, including death and infection rates, instances of avoidable complications and wait times, according to USA Today. Veterans are dying at lower rates and contracting fewer staph and urinary tract infections from catheters in VA medical centers since 2014 and are not staying as long in VA hospitals and are being readmitted within 30 days at lower rates. But they are experiencing higher rates of preventable complications during hospital stays than they did in 2014.

The VA has also seen increases in the percentage of veterans who have to wait longer than 30 days for appointments when they are new patients. Overall, more than 500,000 veterans were still waiting longer than 30 days to be seen as of Nov. 15. More than 125,000 of them were waiting longer than two months, and 46,000 were waiting more than six months, USA Today reports.

Just last month, John Toombs, 32, who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, committed suicide outside the Murfreesboro VA hospital after being discharged from a drug treatment program there. In a YouTube video, he railed against his treatment.

Image via the Department of Veterans Affairs