The Boston Business Journal this week describes a first at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center — a robot-assisted, live liver transplant.

According to a BIDMC transplant surgeon quoted in the article, the facility performs 120 liver transplants a year, but with the new technology it could double that number.

A live liver donation is when a part of a healthy donors organ is transplanted into someone with end-stage liver disease. “The robot, part of the Da Vinci surgical system from California-based Intuitive Surgical Inc., enables surgeons to perform laparoscopically the same functions as they would in an open surgery — leaving donors without a significant scar and a providing a faster, less painful recovery,” reporter Isabel Hart writes.