In 2024, Becker’s reported on 12 academic medical centers that had opened or were developing new ASCs and outpatient centers. In 2025, that number increased to 14, representing a slow but steadily growing interest in ASC investments by academic medical centers.
“I think before the pandemic, there was this gigantic push to transition as much as we could to the outpatient arena,” Walter Allen Fink, DO, chief medical officer of UT Health San Antonio, told Becker’s.
At the time, he said, there was discussion among industry leaders that suggested that inpatient care could become nearly “obsolete,” reserved only for those in critical care.
“And then we had a pandemic, and it turns out we still need inpatient beds. And we need a lot of them,” Dr. Fink said. “But I think now we’re back on that focus of transitioning care to the outpatient space, where it’s a little bit cheaper, where it’s probably safer in some arenas and where it’s more focused on the patient and the patient having some responsibility in that care, versus the inpatient space.”
UT Health San Antonio has traditionally operated as a large outpatient system with 1,700 providers handling about 3,000 cases each day. It transformed into a full-fledged health system in 2024 with the construction of its first hospital, designed to carry on UT Health San Antonio’s outpatient mission while incorporating inpatient services.
“It’s a small hospital, and it still allows us to care for patients in the outpatient arena, and then bring them in the hospital when we need to for the services that we provide here,” Dr. Fink said. “It is what a system 15 years ago would have wanted to do if they weren’t encumbered by the fact that they had a whole bunch of buildings that were gigantic, filled with all kinds of labor and all kinds of resources that they needed to use.”
UT Health San Antonio’s approach to hospital development is more “nimble and light,” Dr. Fink added, creating a “health system that’s responsive to having patients cared for in a setting that’s the least cost, yet still the highest quality we can get. It’s very exciting for us to be here.”
