Best nursing homes in DC area

WASHINGTON — New rankings say the D.C. area is one of the best places for long-term care for the elderly.

All told, there are more than 100 “top performing” nursing homes and rehabilitation centers across D.C., Maryland and Virginia, as tallied up by U.S. News and World Report for its “Best Nursing Homes” rankings. More than half those top-performers are in the immediate D.C. area.

U.S. News analysts evaluated more than 15,000 nursing homes nationwide, and just 15 percent of them — or about 2,300 in total — merited spots on the site’s “Best Nursing Homes” list. The rankings, published Tuesday, coincide with the release of updated information on U.S. News’ “Nursing Home Finder” website.

Ben Harder, chief of health analysis at U.S. News, told WTOP the rankings are designed to help patients and their families make better choices when seeking treatment at long-term-care facilities.

“I think it’s important to recognize that patients and their family members really struggle to find a nursing home that they feel good about going to,” he said. “It’s not something that anyone chooses to do, generally, and it’s a difficult choice of a lot of different factors.”

U.S. News has been compiling its nursing home ranking system since 2009. The rankings rely on federal data measuring medical quality, safety, health inspections and staffing collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which produces its own five-star classification system.

To qualify as a “best nursing home,” on the U.S. News list, facilities had to earn an average at least 4.5 out of 5 stars during the previous 10 months of federal reports ending in August 2017.

Harder recommended using the data as a starting point to identify potential options for you or loved ones.

“But make sure you visit each home that you’re considering,” Harder said. “Visit it not just during the day, but also in the evenings and also on weekends. Make sure you talk to residents who live there. Make sure you talk to the family members of those residents. Ask questions of staff members; seek out an appointment with the medical director and actually make sure your questions are answered so that you have a full picture of the quality of care that your loved one will get at that nursing home.”

See the map below for the top-ranked nursing homes in the D.C. area. The full list is also below.