UCSF Health Has Completed 25,000 Robotic Surgeries
The health system is scaling its surgical fleet to meet rising demand across 18 medical specialties.
Updated on Oct. 10, 2026 in Robotics
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UCSF Health has reached a milestone of 25,000 robotic surgical procedures performed across its five San Francisco campuses. The institution is currently expanding its capacity by adding eight da Vinci 5 systems to its existing fleet.
Why it matters
The health system is scaling its robotics program to improve surgical precision and patient recovery times. This expansion reflects an increasing reliance on computer-assisted tools for complex interventions, including recent additions like robotic kidney transplantation.
Surgeons use 3D visualization with 10 times magnification to guide robotic arms. The newly added da Vinci 5 platform introduces force sensing instrumentation to provide haptic feedback, a technical upgrade over earlier iterations.
The players
UCSF Health
A major academic medical center operating five campuses that manage a diverse fleet of specialized surgical robotics.
The details
Robotic surgery involves the use of specialized systems where surgeons manipulate instruments from a console. These platforms translate hand movements into precise mechanical actions inside the patient. The current fleet at UCSF includes diverse systems such as the da Vinci Xi, da Vinci SP, Ion bronchoscopes, Mazor X, Mako, and PROCEPT BioRobotics HYDROS, serving 18 distinct medical specialties.
Timeline
2025: Surgeons performed more than 3,000 robotic procedures.
2026: The health system is on pace for 4,000 total robotic procedures.
Fall 2026: UCSF plans to open a new robotic surgery operating room at UCSF Stanyan.
The Tech Race
The UCSF Health robotic surgery program demonstrates an accelerated adoption trajectory that mirrors shifts in surgical standards across major academic hospitals. By integrating the latest hardware iterations, the institution is positioning itself as a high-volume hub for specialized robotics.
Patients undergoing procedures at UCSF may see increased availability of robotic-assisted techniques due to the addition of eight da Vinci 5 systems. As the program scales toward 4,000 annual procedures, access to these specialized surgical options will likely expand across the 18 supported medical specialties.
The takeaway
UCSF is rapidly increasing its robotic surgical capacity to support complex procedures like kidney transplantation. Interested observers should monitor the facility's progress toward its goal of 4,000 procedures in 2026 and the opening of the UCSF Stanyan operating room next fall.
What happens next
UCSF Health plans to open a new robotic surgery operating room at the UCSF Stanyan campus in the fall of 2026.
Further reading
For more on how medical facilities are adopting automated surgical tools, visit our Robotics section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by OncLive.
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