Medicare ranked nursing homes in Chattahoochee Valley from best to worse. Here’s the list.

Medicare.gov recently ranked the 11 nursing homes throughout Columbus and Phenix City from best to worst based on a number of criteria.

The website chooses its star rating on a number of factors. Health inspection results, the amount of staffing and quality measures help make up a nursing home’s overall rating.

For various other ratings, such as health inspections and quality measures, the website took into account factors like clinical data measures, the staffing hours of registered nurses (RNs), licensed practice nurses (LPNs) and more.

The complete list

Below is the complete ranking of nursing homes in the Chattahoochee Valley from best to worst, according to medicare.gov:

1. Spring Harbor At Green Island

2. Magnolia Manor Of Columbus Nursing Center - West

3. Magnolia Manor Of Columbus Nursing Center - East

4. Phenix City Health Care, Inc

5. Orchard View Rehabilitation & Skilled Nursing Ctr

6. Azalea Trace Nursing Center

7. Parkwood Health Care Facility

8. Muscogee Manor & Rehabilitation Ctr

9. Oak View Home, Inc

10. Canterbury Health Care Facility

11. River Towne Center

This is a list of nursing homes within 25 miles of 31906. Ratings for nursing homes across the state and country can also be found on medicare.gov.

According to medicare.gov, the best nursing home in the area is Spring Harbor at Green Island, located at 200 Spring Harbor Drive in Columbus. The overall rating for the nursing home is five stars.

Spring Harbor has passed its fire safety complaints two years in a row with zero violations. The last violation was in April 2017, when the nursing home got marked off for not ensuring that smoke barriers are constructed to a 1-hour fire resistance rating. This problem was corrected in June 2017.

Spring Harbor also got high rankings due to staffing. RNs at Spring Harbor spend 56 minutes per resident per day tending to their needs, while the Georgia average is only 25 minutes, according to medicare.gov reports.

Physical therapy staff spend 17 minutes with a resident per day, which is above both the Georgia average of four minutes and the national average of five minutes.

Other highlights for Spring Harbor include:

• The percentage of short-stay residents (people who stay 100 days or less in a nursing home) that were re-hospitalized after being admitted: 8.2%, compared to the Georgia average of 20.8% and the national average of 22.2%

• The percentage of short-stay residents who were able to improve mobility on their own: 76.9%, compared to the Georgia average of 63.8% and the national average of 67.4%

• The percentage of short-stay residents who had an outpatient emergency room visit: 0%, compared to the Georgia average of 10.8% and the national average of 10.6%.

According to medicare.gov, the River Towne Center nursing home located at 5131 Warm Springs Road in Columbus is at the bottom of the list in overall ratings, health inspections and more.

The date of the River Towne Center’s most recent health inspection was in December 2018, when they received eight health citations, which is double the average number of health citations in Georgia. Violations included leaving catheter drainage bags in full view of passersbys from the hallway, failing to provide privacy for a resident when she took showers and more.

Magnolia Manor and River Towne Center were reached for comment but did not respond.