This ‘One button’ function was an Uber proof of concept meant to explore the technology needed to allow the patient to request a ride to the clinician’s office.

The drug trial app knows the location of the clinician’s office and the time of a patient’s appointment. This allows the ‘one button’ ride request to program in destinations and to enable rides only when close in time to the appointment.

The issue with this type of ride is that various privacy laws and drug trial agreements require that Uber not know the rider’s identity. Uber developed a unique healthcare API specifically designed for these anonymous rides. It turns out that Uber’s day-one code assumption was that the rider had their own account (even if the company paid it). This API works around this assumption.

This project never advanced past the POC stage. It fully exercised the API, allowing rides to be ordered (in Uber’s sandbox) and providing location callbacks as the ride progressed.