When Kaiser Permanente’s Largo (Md.) Medical Center became the first freestanding ASC in the health system’s Mid-Atlantic region to offer robotic surgery in 2020, the program started small: general surgery only, performing about 10 hernia procedures a month. Five years and more than 1,700 robotic procedures later, that single ASC now performs nearly 40 robotic operations monthly across general surgery, gynecology and urology — and Kaiser Permanente is using that track record to expand robotic capability to its Tysons Corner (Va.) Medical Center.
The result, five years after Largo’s first robotic hernia repair, is a model Kaiser Permanente now considers replicable, not just because they can continue buying robots, but because it built the underlying system built to support the robotic investment in the first place.
Gao Chen, MD, surgeon and regional director of robotic surgery at Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic States, spoke with Becker’s about what actually drove that growth, and why the health system sees robotics as one piece of a much larger outpatient strategy rather than a standalone equipment purchase.
The decision behind expanding to a second site
The move to Tysons Corner wasn’t a standalone bet — it was built directly on Largo’s results. “The decision to expand robotic surgery capabilities to the Kaiser Permanente Tysons Corner Medical Center was driven by two primary factors: the success of our robotic surgery program at the Kaiser Permanente Largo Ambulatory Surgery Center and the growing demand for advanced outpatient surgical care in Northern Virginia,” Dr. Chen said.
The Largo program demonstrated that complex procedures across general surgery, urology and gynecology could be performed safely and effectively in an ASC setting — evidence Kaiser Permanente is now using to justify replicating the model elsewhere.
But Dr. Chen was careful to frame the expansion as a broader strategy of building an integrated network of robotic-enabled ASCs, rather than treating each installation as an isolated capital purchase. “The larger opportunity is not simply adding another robot,” she said. “It is building the capacity across our healthcare system and expanding what can be safely performed in an outpatient setting.”
What it actually took to make Largo work
The growth from 10 to nearly 40 procedures a month didn’t happen because Kaiser Permanente simply installed a robotic system and waited for volume to follow. According to Dr. Chen, scaling the program required building out an entire supporting infrastructure alongside the technology itself: a formal training partnership with Intuitive Surgical for both surgeons and operating-room staff, expanded sterile processing capacity, dedicated anesthesia support, and reworked scheduling and perioperative workflows.
“Successful outpatient robotics depends on the entire care team being prepared to work with the technology and with the unique requirements of an ambulatory surgery center environment,” Dr. Chen said.
In other words, the robot was the easy part. The harder, longer-term work was preparing every function around it, from sterilization to scheduling, to actually support outpatient robotic volume at scale.
The bigger picture
Dr. Chen tied the expansion to a broader industry shift toward outpatient surgery, driven by both technological advances and an aging population that will continue to drive surgical demand. But the emphasis throughout was consistent: growth must be built deliberately, not just funded. “Our investments have focused on building the expertise, infrastructure and technology needed to support that evolution while maintaining high standards for quality and patient outcomes,” she said.
At the Becker’s 32nd Annual Meeting: The Business and Operations of ASCs, taking place October 29-31 in Chicago, ASC leaders, surgeons and healthcare executives will explore strategies to drive growth, enhance operational performance, navigate reimbursement challenges and prepare for the future of ambulatory surgery. Apply for complimentary registration now.
