Existing quality metrics related to social care have predominantly focused on social care quantity (e.g., % of patients screened for social risks, % provided resources). As a counterbalancing measure, with support from Kaiser Permanente SIREN developed and validated a patient experience measure related to healthcare-based social care. The resulting brief Patient Experience of Social Care Measure is a valid, flexible, and practical tool for assessing patients’ experiences of social care that might be used to inform improvements in social care.
There is no cost to use the entire or parts of the measure, which is available in the links below. Scoring information is included at the end of the document. If the tool is being used in research, please cite the following papers about the tool’s development and validation process:
1. Potharaju K, Gottlieb LM, Wing HE, Gonzalez-Rocha A, Brewster AL, Jones DH, Quiñones-Rivera A. Drivers of Patient Experiences with Healthcare-Based Social Care. Health Serv Res. 2026 Feb;61(1):1-9.
2. Hessler Jones D, Wing HE, Seervai S, Suh C, Gonzalez-Rocha A, Quiñones-Rivera A, Sechopoulos S, Seth J, Potharaju K, Gottlieb LM. Patient experiences measures of healthcare-based social care. Annals of Fam Med. Submitted December 15, 2025.
University of San Francisco California