The Fountains at Washington House
5100 Fillmore Avenue, Alexandria VA 22311 · (703) 845-5000 · 67.69% estimated occupancy 1Updated: Aug 1, 2020 · By Sara Levinsohn
The Fountains at Washington House is located in Alexandria, Virginia, which is one of the most densely populated metropolitan areas in the nation. Sporting an overall grade of D, this is a subpar nursing home. Based on our assessment, this facility may not be the best fit for most prospective residents. The only positive thing we can say about this facility is that it didn't receive any F's in any of the categories we assessed. More information about these categories can be found below.
Additional Details:
Accepts Medicare 1 :
Accepts Medicaid 1 : 65 Beds
CCRC :
For profit - Corporation
Resident Council:
Family Council:
Medical Staff Hours Per Patient (2019)
Short-term Care Quality
This nursing home surprisingly earned a good score in our short-term care category. We gave it a B+ for that category, which is a solid score. Our short-term care ratings are believed to be more critical for patients needing rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation typically utilizes higher levels of highly-skilled nursing. Skilled nursing includes not merely nursing, but also physical and speech therapy, as well as other types of therapy. Remarkably, this facility provides its residents with at least 50% more physical therapist hours per week than the average facility. Finally, we looked at the percentage of residents who returned home from this nursing home. In addition to excelling in the area of physical therapy hours, we found that it performed as well as just about any nursing home in the nation in this area with 65.3 percent of its patients returning home.
Facility Inspections
Surprisingly, this facility actually received a good score in inspections as well. We gave it a B for that category, which is one of our better scores. Few nursing homes that were this poor overall received multiple category grades of this caliber. Inspection ratings take several factors into consideration, including deficiencies and substantiated complaints. You can learn more about each of these issues by obtaining copies of nursing homes' inspection reports. This particular nursing home had just a single deficiency on its inspection report and it was not one deemed to pose a threat to patient health or safety. Despite this deficiency, this place still had a relatively favorable report.
Long-term Care Quality
Moving on to the category of long-term care, this nursing home was awarded a grade of just D in this area. If you are seeking anything other than short-term rehabilitation, you should take a close look at each nursing home's long-term care ratings. Once we assessed the amount of care provided by nurses and other staff, we then looked at the facility's vaccination statistics. This facility vaccinated 96.82539 percent of its patients against pneumonia, which is more than the average nursing home. Finally, we looked at its number of hospitalizations. Here we found that this place fared radically worse with 4.53 hospitalizations per one thousand long-term resident days. Sadly, this statistic is more than double the national average.
Nurse Quality
The final category we assessed was nursing, proved to be this nursing home's weakest category. We gave this nursing home a grade of D in that category. The nursing score analyzes quite a few subcategories, most of which are tied to quantities of nurse staffing. Quantity of nursing care does not appear to be the problem here. Based on the data, it looks like this nursing home provides an above average 4 hours per resident daily. This is more nursing care than most facilities provide. Despite being above average in terms of nursing hours, this facility had abysmal scores in some of the quality-based measures we looked at in computing our nursing grades. For starters, we looked at the percent of patients sustaining pressure ulcers. This facility was at more than double the national average in this statistic. This is quite alarming when you consider that many bed sores are believed to be preventable with better nursing care. This ended up sealing the nursing home's fate of receiving a very poor nursing grade.
Overall Rating Over Time
Compared to national and state averages across all facilities.
The Fountains at Washington House Quality Metrics
Minimizes Pressure Ulcers
This is the percent of residents who have had a pressure ulcer. Pressure ulcers, which are also called bed sores, are routinely the result of residents staying in one position for too long. Better nursing care minimizes the percentage of residents in a nursing home who sustain pressure ulcers.
Percent of Patients with Pressure Ulcers
Lower is Better
Minimizes Serious Falls
This indicates the percentage of residents who have had a major fall. Falls resulting in severe injury are often the result of poor nursing care. Better nursing protocols minimizes the percentage of residents in a nursing home who sustain major falls.
Percent of Patients with Serious Falls
Lower is Better
Minimizes Urinary Tract Infections
This statistic measures the percent of long-term stay residents who have suffered from a UTI. UTI's could be a sign of poor nursing care. Nevertheless, this statistic can be misleading for certain nursing homes due to inconsistent reporting standards for urinary tract infections.
Percent of Patients with UTIs
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Psychotic Medication
This indicates the percent of residents who were given antipsychotic medications. While antipsychotic medications may be vital to many patients, it is important to ensure these medications are being used only where medically required. In limited cases, excessive reliance on these medications may mean a facility is using these drugs to control patient behavior.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriately Uses Anti-Anxiety Medication
This measures the percentage of long-term care patients that were given antianxiety drugs. These medications are used to treat patients experiencing depression and anxiety.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Managing Depression Among Residents
Measures the percentage of long-term care residents demonstrating symptoms of depression. Many in the industry believe this is a reliable measure of quality of care.
Percent of Patients
Lower is Better
Appropriate Vaccine Usage
This metric measures the percent of long-term stay residents who received the pneumonia and flu vaccines. Respiratory viruses can be very dangerous for seniors, making these types of vaccines indispensable.
Percent of Patients
Higher is Better
Residents Maintain Autonomy
This is the percent of patients that required additional assistance with activities of daily living over time. Higher levels of needing for assistance with ADL's may indicate deterioration of a resident's medical condition.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Ability to Keep Residents Mobile
This indicates the percentage of residents that were able to retain mobility over time. Retaining mobility is often a good sign for residents' health.
Percentage of Residents
Higher is Better
Hospitalizations
This tells you the number of hospitalizations per thousand days of care.
Hospitalizations per 1,000 resident days
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Rehospitalizations
This datapoint is a measure of the number of times residents are rehospitalized per 1,000 days of short-term resident care.
Percentage of Residents Rehospitalized
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: ER Visits
This is the number of times residents are sent to the emergency room per 1,000 days of short-term patient care.
Percentage of Patients
Lower is Better
Short-term Care: Facilitates Functional Improvement
Measures the percent of short-term patients who saw functional improvements, such as enhanced ability to perform activities of daily living. Many in the industry argue this is a reliable measure of rehabilitation performance.
Percentage of Resident
Higher is Better