From Watch to Know in 2018: How Prodigo Solutions Keeps Pace With the Rapidly Changing Healthcare Sector

Each year, some companies on the Spend Matters 50 Providers to Know and 50 Providers to Watch lists push themselves beyond simply a standout performance. They earn the recognition that they are not only bringing innovation into procurement organizations but also leading the charge to change the way we do business for the better. These are the providers who shifted from Watch to Know in 2018.

To learn more about these providers, we reached out to the four such cases in our 2018 50/50 lists, asking how they’ve changed over the years and what differentiates them from the competition. Today’s Q&A features Michael DeLuca, executive vice president of operations at Prodigo Solutions, a provider focused in the healthcare sector.

Spend Matters: In case our readers aren’t fully familiar, can you give us a one-sentence summary of what your company does?

Michael DeLuca: Prodigo exists to help healthcare providers remove costs from their supply chain and achieve patient safety objectives through improved data quality, operational efficiency and supply chain transparency.

SM: How has your company changed since it was first named a Provider to Watch? What is the biggest lesson have you learned?

MD: Thanks to our customer-partners and their ever-evolving needs, we’ve dug even deeper to solve healthcare’s supply chain needs that other solutions cannot address. An example of this is the provision of functionality to notify requestors of item-specific product alerts and recalls exactly when they need to see it — the point of sale.

Our biggest lesson has been that the pace of advancement within healthcare supply chain departments are now evolving rapidly. The needs for standardization, compliance and data integration are greater than ever. If you’re evolving at the same pace, you’ll quickly be left behind.

SM: What are your two or three best features or services that make you a Provider to Know?

MD: Our solutions are tailored specifically for healthcare providers. In fact, our heritage is healthcare: Prodigo was conceived and incubated within a $17 billion healthcare system. We do not serve any other industries. This allows us to stay in-step with the developing needs of this specific industry and our customers.

In addition, we’re extremely proud to have been selected by half of the top 15 U.S. News & World Report Honor Roll hospitals, over 20% the nation’s largest 50 IDN’s and over 30% of Gartner’s top hospital supply chain departments. 

SM: How are you thinking about your competitive landscape? How are you differentiating yourself from other Providers to Know in the industry and upstarts on the Watch List?

MD: Our position is to partner and work with the predominate ERP systems selected by our customers to help enhance them as opposed to replacing their modules. That allows healthcare systems to easily extend important functionality without costly and time-consuming customizations, integrations and upgrade hassles. Working closely with the ERPs ensures that integrations are simple, effective and valuable to our customers. It also helps to ensure that we’re delivering more value year-on-year for their investment in us.

SM: Where do you see the procurement sector going in the next several years, and how is your company helping organizations through that? 

MD: Healthcare procurement is advancing rapidly. Connecting relevant data across multiple platforms has historically been a bottleneck for the industry. Data has lived in silos and is often incomplete. This is no longer acceptable for more progressive organizations.

The question is how to link everything together. Prodigo is continuing to work with many of the most advanced healthcare systems in the nation to have these difficult discussions and provide the infrastructure to generate much more value than they could with traditional purchasing activities alone.