Veterans Hospital performance ratings obtained by the USA Today showed that the Tennessee Veterans Hospitals are ranked amongst the worst in the nation. Out of 146 Veteran Health Administration Hospitals across the nation ten of those rank a single star out of five. Three of the ten are in Tennessee, two of them are the Murfreesboro and Nashville VA Hospitals while Memphis is the third one. Tennessee had the 14th largest veteran population in 2015 according to federal data with about 503,000 veterans. While Nashville ranked in the bottom 10 percent for patient mortality, mental health care and appointment wait times, Murfreesboro ranked among the worst in patient satisfaction, mental health care appointment wait times and other measures. Murfreesboro did excel in patient safety. It also had low rates of hospital associated infections and in hospital complications. Murfreesboro’s call center also made dramatic improvements since 2013 in its response time and dropped call rate.
