Healthcare data analytics company Socially Determined and Uber Health, the ride-hailing company's healthcare arm for patients and providers, are partnering to improve access to food and prescription delivery as well as transportation services by leveraging social determinants of health analytics.

Socially Determined offers payers, providers, life sciences organizations and others an analytics platform that provides data insights into social risk factors. Organizations can use the company's social risk data alongside their preexisting clinical and claims data to understand better the people and communities they serve. 

Using Socially Determined's analytics, Uber Health aims to help beneficiaries of Medicaid, Medicare Advantage and commercial insurance by facilitating transportation, same-day prescription deliveries and access to grocery and over-the-counter essentials.

Uber will leverage patient benefit data and eligibility files from payers, helping to coordinate benefits through services covered by the beneficiary's insurance plan.

Socially Determined developed purpose-built analytic models designed explicitly for Uber Health’s key benefits – including transportation, as well as food and pharmacy delivery.

The individual metrics help identify specific people in need, while the community metrics take a broader look to assess different social risk factors at a neighborhood level.

"For years, our payer and provider customers have utilized our social risk analytics to better understand and address the challenges their members and patients faced every day. And now we’ve developed purpose-built analytic models designed explicitly for Uber Health’s key benefits that immediately help identify those individuals with the greatest need for each benefit," Trenor Williams, cofounder and CEO at Socially Determined, said in a statement. 

"Once our payer and provider partners know who needs assistance and what specific challenges need to be addressed, they require a partner to help mitigate those risks and eliminate those barriers. Uber Health’s knowledge, approach and ubiquitous network provides the perfect partner for our analytics and allows our customers to drive measurable, improved outcomes and member experience."

THE LARGER TREND

Uber Health continued expanding its offerings and services, introducing grocery and over-the-counter item delivery in June last year. 

The food delivery service followed the addition of same-day prescription delivery, established through a partnership with ScriptDrop, in April.

In 2023, Socially Determined announced a partnership with data-sharing technology startup Datavant to provide life sciences companies with data on social risk drivers to improve health equity and patient outcomes.  

Uber Health partnered with Walgreens and food-delivery service DoorDash in 2022 to deliver COVID-19 antiviral medication to underserved communities.

That same year, Socially Determined closed a $26 million Series B funding round.

In 2021, Uber announced a partnership with direct-to-consumer virtual care company Hims & Hers to deliver personal-care items like hair products, skincare, sleep aids and condoms to customers via the Uber Eats app and a collaboration with senior assistance company Papa is partnering with Uber Health to provide transportation and decrease social isolation among seniors.

Another delivery company that's made its way into healthcare is Instacart, which launched Instacart Health in 2022. 

The grocery delivery service expanded its health-related offerings to include provider-facing tools, including Virtual Storefronts, where providers can create a curated shop for their patients; Shoppable Recipes, where practitioners can recommend recipes to patients; and Lists for Nutrition, which enables providers to build medically-tailored grocery lists.