Robotic-assisted surgery programs can transform patient outcomes, but growing a successful service line requires more than just acquiring new technology.
Tallahassee (Fla.) Memorial HealthCare, a 770-bed hospital, has rapidly evolved from housing a single robotic system with limited use to a thriving robotic-assisted surgery program featuring six da Vinci systems and 24/7 access.
During a featured session at Joey Jarrard, MD, a fellowship-trained minimally invasive and bariatric surgeon at the hospital, outlined its journey from low adoption and skepticism to becoming a regional leader in robotic surgery.
Here are four key takeaways from his session:
Note: Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.
- Patient + physician marketing drive growth
Even the most advanced surgical technology won’t reach its full potential without intentional marketing. Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare wasn’t capturing all the patients in the region for bariatrics, cancer care and hernia repairs because there wasn’t widespread awareness about the hospital’s advanced robotic capabilities.
To improve awareness, the hospital’s marketing team worked to highlight success stories, patient testimonials and outcomes. The team leveraged social media, digital campaigns, educational webinars and even billboard ads featuring real patients. A component of the educational content was meant to help prospective patients understand the clinical benefits of surgery compared to other treatment options.
“We know that surgery often outperforms GLP-1s in some cases.” Dr. Jarrard said. “Big pharma is really good at advertising their products. We as physicians don’t do so well at advertising our products, but the data is there. We don’t have to go create it. We don’t have to go do research. It’s already there.”
Because access to the latest surgical technology can be a draw for new surgeons, the hospital also leveraged the technology to grow its surgical teams. According to Dr. Jarrad, Tallahassee Memorial has seen a 33% increase in robotic surgery volume in the last year and 50% of the growth is from new surgeons.
“I’ve been told ‘it’s so hard to recruit surgeons in the area — people don’t know about Tallahassee,'” Dr. Jarrad said. “I get on the phone with programs, training programs, friends of friends and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got 6 robots. We’ve got 24/7 access. I’m doing 400 or 500 robotic surgeries a year. I need help.’ And surgeons want to come.”
- Education builds trust among patients and referring physicians
Tallahassee Memorial’s team focused on reshaping perceptions — both with patients and referring physicians — about robotic surgery.
Patient-facing campaigns emphasized that robotic-assisted procedures could lead to shorter hospital stays, lower complication rates and faster recovery. They also highlighted unique benefits for bariatric surgery, such as improved fertility and cancer risk reduction.
On the physician side, Tallahassee Memorial hosted referral dinners and live robotic demos to demonstrate how complex procedures could be done locally. Dr. Jarrad shared an example of how one dinner yielded a significant return on investment.
“One of the dinners cost $2,000,” he said. “Within three months I had 25 referrals and every one of them went to surgery. Based off the national average contribution margin of a paraoesophageal hernia, over 50x return on investment from a single dinner.”
- Marketing readiness starts with infrastructure, culture and alignment
Before Tallahassee Memorial could leverage robotics for growth, it had to build a strong internal foundation. Dr. Jarrard emphasized that sustainable marketing efforts only work when the program has the right infrastructure, culture and administrative alignment.
That meant creating dedicated robotic teams, standardizing workflows, ensuring 24/7 access, and aligning executives, surgeons and staff around shared goals.
“You have to build the infrastructure for growth,” Dr. Jarrard said. “This is about laying the data out and improving awareness of the truth, the benefits and pros and cons of each pathway and that starts with the clinical team experience.”
- Administrative alignment improves access
After building early interest among OR staff, Dr. Jarrard demonstrated the financial cost of inconsistency. In one day, two cases produced approximately $6,000 in wasted supplies due to miscommunication. He presented this data to executives, which helped secure team-based staffing and eventually 24/7 robotic access.
Transparency and communication also strengthened physician-administrator trust, emphasizing that surgeons want to clearly understand the rationale behind operational changes.
“Transparency is the single greatest virtue in the relationship between a surgeon and administrator,” Dr. Jarrad said.
