Prodigo Solutions

Prodigo guarantees results for its clients

Healthcare is a topic at the forefront of conversations, whether they occur between talking heads on the 24-hour news loop, co-workers at the water cooler, or friends meeting for drinks. Healthcare costs are soaring, with hospital operating expenses serving as low-hanging-fruit to mitigate the billions of dollars spent in medical care. Hospitals contending with shrinking revenues are looking for ways to decrease spending while still offering outstanding services.

Cranberry’s Prodigo Solutions Inc. has a prescription to assist healthcare providers. The company developed a searchable, online marketplace that helps providers save money by enabling them to efficiently shop for and purchase their medical supplies. The system is customized for each individual client, allowing hospital networks to locate the lowest prices for their supplies from a cache of vendors, often resulting in rebates and pricing discounts. “It’s an Amazon-like shopping place for medical supplies,” explains Michael DeLuca, Prodigo’s Executive Vice President of Technology and Client Services, “You can search by keyword, so just typing in ‘catheter’ or ‘gauze’ will immediately provide you with a list of results.”

Six years ago, Prodigo was a UPMC start-up. By 2012, the company finished its business incubation period and went on to more than double its client base in a year. In July 2014, private equity firm Alliance Healthcare Partners in Scottsdale, Arizona purchased 51% of the company, with UPMC retaining the other 49%.

Prodigo guarantees results for its clients. The company analyzes a provider’s supply chain, highlighting for hospital administrators where they are losing money and where costs can be avoided. Those savings are then guaranteed to the hospital, or the company will pay that money back to the provider. “We make a commitment to the hospital to cut costs by a certain percentage,” DeLuca adds, “We have a history of showing we can execute a plan.”

Business is booming. Prodigo moved to its current location in Cranberry Woods last May and hasn’t looked back. Demand is high for its product, and the company has grown from ten employees in May to 22 now, with an additional five moving to Cranberry from a recently acquired Canadian office. To date, Prodigo works with 100 acute care hospitals, including four of the top 15 US News & World Report Honor Roll hospitals. “We’re growing in a very calculated way,” asserts DeLuca, who cites the Township’s transportation infrastructure, parking availability, and convenient amenities as reasons for the company’s move to Cranberry, “We can continue to grow here.”