Uber In Portugal Is Now Offering Home Healthcare Visits

Internationally famend transportation app Uber is now increasing far past its unique premise based mostly on ride-sharing. Its newest enterprise entails offering complete healthcare providers, a daring new program that the corporate is piloting in Portugal.

Final month, it was reported that Uber Eats, the food-delivery department of the corporate, shall be increasing into delivering one thing greater than only a meal: healthcare on demand.

The Portugal News reported that the Uber Eats platform will now characteristic a “Physician at House” perform, offering customers with the flexibility to request both an in-person house-visit by a healthcare skilled, or a cellphone or video session for medical recommendation. To allow this, Uber has reportedly partnered with Ecco-Salva Medical Services, an area chief in offering quite a lot of providers starting from dwelling medical help, telemedicine providers,  occupational well being consultations, affected person transport capabilities, and rather more.

Uber is definitely not new to the healthcare sport. I wrote final yr about how each Uber and Lyft are trying to resolve vital issues in healthcare, together with tackling the large access-to-care problem confronted by thousands and thousands of People. Moreover, Uber has already ventured into auxiliary healthcare providers. Final yr, it introduced a groundbreaking partnership with ScriptDrop, hoping to supply thousands and thousands of People a neater approach to get entry to prescription medicines.

The unique press release for the initiative defined: “This work is a part of [Uber’s] continued dedication to constructing versatile and scalable supply options, and, extra importantly, it’s going to allow much more prospects to profit from prescriptions delivered on to their doorsteps.”

Amanda Epp, CEO of ScriptDrop, added: “This previous yr has proven us now greater than ever that pharmacies want more practical methods to get sufferers the prescriptions they want […] With the ability to mix ScriptDrop’s built-in interface with Uber’s expertise signifies that pharmacies of all sizes shall be higher geared up to enhance prescription adherence and serve probably the most weak of their communities.” 

This sentiment is de facto what all of it comes right down to, particularly when trying on the bigger healthcare narrative for corporations like Uber: creating simpler methods to supply providers and enhancing shopper high quality of life. Uber has succeeded in creating one of many largest intangible transportation, logistics, and consumer networks on this planet. The corporate’s most useful asset, its staff, have helped develop a strong social expertise that has redefined the transportation and supply business.

This infrastructure has supplied Uber with huge potential for disrupting the healthcare business, and the corporate is simply now beginning to actually embark upon this journey. Undoubtedly, this new initiative in Portugal is probably going one in every of many extra to return. If Uber is certainly capable of efficiently scale this mannequin in a way which optimizes affected person security and safety, there could also be an unparalleled and distinctive alternative to supply worth to billions of individuals worldwide.