Multi-national ride-sharing company, Uber plans on leveraging its platform to deliver food and prescriptions to needy patients who can’t get around on their own.

Uber Health chief Dan Trigub mentioned at the CB Insights' Future of Health Conference, in New York, earlier this month, that the idea had been cooking for years.

Since Uber Eats was launched in Toronto nearly 4 years ago, more than 1 billion orders have been delivered to customers across 36 countries and in over 500 cities. The company aims to build more features that address issues important to the communities that it serves. In 2014 Uber launched drug store delivery platform.

Like other consumer-focused companies, Uber too has realized that they can leverage their infrastructure and technology to make a difference in the way healthcare is delivered, according to Josh Weiner, president and COO of Solutionreach, a patient relationship management company in Lehi, Utah.

Weiner said that this is a $3.5 trillion problem in the United States. It is evident that Uber is only beginning to scratch the surface on how the company can make a difference in overcoming one of the single biggest issues the patients face today.

He also said that in a short period of time, Uber changed the paradigm of how people and goods move around by creating a market place of eager on-demand consumers and gig-economy workers. He added that there are myriad ways this new paradigm can improve healthcare and its is incumbent on healthcare executives to think about unlocking the potential.

Thus, Uber plans to make its contribution in the most significant area of healthcare - Social Determinants of Health.