Healthcare should be there for us when we need it—not the other way around.
That might sound obvious. But if you’ve tried to navigate a hospital campus lately, or sat with a loved one through the maze of appointments, tests, and transportation challenges, you know it’s anything but.
Care is supposed to be simple. Direct. Human.
The truth is, many healthcare organizations are forced to do much more than care—they’re managing parking lots, coordinating rides, directing traffic, and trying to be everywhere all at once.
We’ve talked a lot at Uber about reimagining how the world moves. That mission didn’t start in healthcare—but healthcare is where the stakes couldn’t be higher.
The Hidden Cost of Showing Up
In 2023, a health system in Texas made half its revenue from parking fees. That’s not a knock on the hospital—it’s a reflection of the system it operates in.
Most hospitals were never designed with human-scale mobility in mind. Patients are dropped off in zones that feel more like loading docks than healing spaces. Families park in garages the length of football fields away from elevators, and older adults navigate confusing signage and steep walkways just to make it to a check-in desk.
We’ve made it hard just to show up—and then we wonder why people delay or skip care.
Utilization Is Not the Enemy—It’s the Goal.
There’s an unspoken narrative in American healthcare: that unless you’re really sick, you don’t belong at the hospital. It’s a mindset that took root long before COVID, but the pandemic put it in plain view.
People avoided care until it was too late—either because they were afraid, or because they didn’t think they were "sick enough" to deserve help.
This is backwards.
We should be making it easier—not harder—for people to access the care they need, when they need it. Preventive visits, follow-ups, physical therapy, labs, counseling—these aren't “nice to haves.” They’re the foundation of a healthcare system that works.
Mobility Is a Healthcare Problem—And an Opportunity
A missed appointment isn’t just a scheduling issue. It’s a lost chance for intervention. It’s a delayed diagnosis. It’s a caregiver who rearranged their whole day and still couldn’t make it work.
Getting to care shouldn’t be a test of resilience. And it shouldn’t be on patients to figure it out.
That’s where we believe Uber can play a meaningful role. We already move people, food, and packages across cities every minute of every day. So we’re asking: how can we apply that infrastructure to support healthcare delivery?
How can we make it easier for a home health aide to get to a shift? For an older adult to get to their check-up without needing to decipher a bus schedule? For a caregiver to book a ride on behalf of someone else, easily?
We’re not looking to reinvent healthcare. But we are determined to help it work better.
Let People Do What They Do Best
Healthcare professionals didn’t go into the field to manage transportation. They went into it to heal, to listen, to care.
At Uber, our role is simple: make movement easier, safer, and more reliable—for everyone. That means creating tools for health systems and insurers. It means interfaces that work for older adults and caregivers. It means showing up where people need us—not just for a ride, but for what that ride makes possible.
Because when we make it easier for patients to get to care, we make it easier for healthcare to do what it was always meant to do.