In evaluating quality of care, high agreement between ratings was found when 6 social workers (SW) with in-depth knowledge of nursing homes ranked 40 homes on a 5-point scale ranging from high to poor quality. To determine the relationship of their opinion to more standardized structural assessment of homes, the homes were rated on a 90-item scale by researchers with no prior knowledge of the homes. There was a high correlation between the two sources of data and the best prediction of SW judgment was staff/patient ratio, patient satisfaction, and home size. From the assessments, it was possible to define the important factors influencing SW judgments, and results indicated expert opinion could substitute for more costly in-depth assessments.