Panda Health is a company that transforms how health systems connect with, explore, and adopt leading digital health technologies. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Panda Health CEO Ryan Bengtson to learn more about the company.
Ryan Bengtson’s Background
What is your background, and what brought you to healthcare? Bengtson said:
“I actually got an engineering degree and immediately joined Andersen Consulting at the time, now Accenture. Early on, I worked across various industry sectors, including automotive and tech, but kept finding myself drawn to the healthcare space. I found much more purpose and satisfaction in enabling health systems to deliver on their mission rather than helping a Fortune 500 company increase its margins. So, I spent about 20 years focused on the provider side of healthcare and in that time, I also earned my master’s in health system administration from the University of Michigan.”
“In 2015, I was a Managing Director at Huron Consulting Group, leading their Clinical Operations practice when I made the decision to leave consulting for Health IT, specifically in predictive analytics and digital health. I joined Panda in 2020 as the company was launching, and, as is common with startups, I served in many different roles. In my current position, I’m responsible for setting our strategic direction and making sure our offerings align with the needs of our growing network of hospital and health system customers.”
What Panda Health Does
How would you describe what Panda Health does? Bengtson shared:
“Digital health is very noisy, with hundreds of different solution categories and thousands of vendors claiming to have the best products. When a health system is looking for technology, they spend thousands of hours on research, solution evaluations, demos, and more to sift through the noise. Even with all of that time and effort, they struggle to find a solution and partner that is right for their unique needs. Panda Health is a digital health community and market intelligence platform that helps these health system leaders make confident, well-informed digital health decisions by providing unbiased data and collaboration.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Bengtson reflected:
“From a company perspective, it has been watching our health system member growth. We were founded by three health systems to meet the challenges they were specifically facing. From those three, it’s been incredibly rewarding to see Panda achieve 10, 20, 40 members, and so on, as they recognize the value of joining our community.”
“On a personal level, it was our latest all-company retreat. Like many companies today, our team is very distributed, and we interact with one another almost entirely online. So, it’s always great to get everyone together in person and create those human connections that can be difficult to achieve virtually.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Bengtson explained:
“We have a singular focus on helping health systems find the right digital solutions for their unique needs, and we achieve that in three ways. First, we have an extensive market intelligence platform where we have aggregated data and intel on thousands of vendors and solutions across over 130 distinct digital health categories. Second, we have a peer-to-peer community platform that facilitates knowledge sharing among our members via community forums, virtual roundtables, and interactive webinars. Lastly, we offer a suite of services that provide resources and expertise that augment and give leverage to our members’ IT and procurement teams.”
Evolution Of Panda Health
How has Panda Health evolved since its inception in 2020? Bengtson noted:
“We’ve evolved as the industry has. Our initial focus was as a digital health marketplace, identifying the best solutions in each category and contracting with those solutions for the benefit of our members. That was very effective during the pandemic, but given the explosive growth in new categories and solutions that has occurred over the last few years, we’ve moved our services ‘upstream’ in the selection and procurement process. We’ve extended our offerings to include additional data and services that support needs identification, use case development, and solution matching, along with expanded market intelligence.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Bengtson cited:
“The first thing that came to mind was the development and launch of our platform. For the first year or so, all our intel was housed internally, and we had to manually share it with members on an as-needed basis. Moving all of that to an online platform and allowing our members to access that full content library was critical. Recently, the launch of our Member Community was an exciting milestone as we’ve created a virtual hub where health leaders can exchange knowledge and insights that help propel digital health advancements. Each of these milestones creates more and more value for our members by allowing greater scale and efficiency.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Bengtson about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“One that always stands out is from a health system member that was relatively early on in their digital transformation journey. They started out on their own, and it took them 18 months from the time they identified a need, sifted through all of the noise in the market, found a solution, and brought it to fruition. They just didn’t have the resources to navigate the complexity of the market. The first digital solution need they had working with Panda took only five months to complete all the same steps. Needless to say, the member was thrilled and began realizing the value of that solution a full year earlier than they could have on their own.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Bengtson assessed:
“US Digitial Health spend was roughly $81 billion last year and is expected to grow at a rate of 19.5% through 2023. That puts us at just shy of $100 billion this year and an estimated $280 billion by 2030.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from others in the industry? Bengtson affirmed:
“As a company founded by health systems for health systems, we’ve always had deep roots in understanding the unique challenges that they face daily. This origin gives us a distinct advantage: we’re not just another vendor selling solutions; we’re partners who understand the operational, financial, and clinical pressures our partners are facing. We work closely with our members to find highly practical and scalable solutions for their environments. Ultimately, our focus on providing unbiased market intelligence that leads to better, more efficient adoption and implementation of digital health solutions that address real-world problems is what sets us apart from others.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of Panda Health’s future company goals? Bengtson pointed out:
“The advancement of digital health discovery and implementation for hospitals is always going to be a driving force for what we hope to achieve. As technology and novel solutions come to market, we’re focused on helping leaders stay ahead of emerging trends and tailoring our offerings to meet their evolving needs.”
Digital Health ROI Report
You recently released the Digital Health ROI Report; what are the top takeaways you think the industry needs to hear from this? Bengtson concluded:
“The Digital Health ROI Report explored the variety of ways hospitals and health systems are quantifying ROI for their digital health investments. When we hear ROI, our mind typically thinks about the financial aspect, but what we found is that healthcare leaders think about it differently depending on their role. We’ve helped demystify what those who are seeing increased levels of success are doing differently and the strategies that help lead to this success.”
