Final Report for the Workshop on Robotics & AI in Medicine

2026-03-18

AI Summary

This work addresses critical challenges impeding the deployment of intelligent medical robots—namely, data scarcity, lack of standardized evaluation metrics, unclear regulatory pathways, and workforce shortages—across surgical, diagnostic, and rehabilitative settings. Through interdisciplinary workshops engaging researchers, clinicians, industry stakeholders, and policymakers, the project establishes a consensus-driven vision for a national Center for AI and Robotics Excellence in Healthcare (CARE). It identifies key strategic priorities, including human–robot collaboration, trustworthy autonomy, digital twins, multimodal perception, and ethical integration of generative AI. The proposed roadmap encompasses high-quality dataset curation, shared testing infrastructures, clinically grounded benchmarks, and cross-disciplinary talent development to bridge engineering innovation with real-world clinical needs, thereby enhancing care precision, alleviating clinician workload, and expanding access to high-quality healthcare services.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot Interaction
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Safety, Robustness & Trustworthiness
• Humans and AI: Planning and Decision Support for Human-Machine Teams

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web applications in cross-disciplinary domains and verticals such as mixed reality, smart cities, and digital health
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics

Abstract

The CARE Workshop on Robotics and AI in Medicine, held on December 1, 2025 in Indianapolis, convened leading researchers, clinicians, industry innovators, and federal stakeholders to shape a national vision for advancing robotics and artificial intelligence in healthcare. The event highlighted the accelerating need for coordinated research efforts that bridge engineering innovation with real clinical priorities, emphasizing safety, reliability, and translational readiness with an emphasis on the use of robotics and AI to achieve this readiness goal. Across keynotes, panels, and breakout sessions, participants underscored critical gaps in data availability, standardized evaluation methods, regulatory pathways, and workforce training that hinder the deployment of intelligent robotic systems in surgical, diagnostic, rehabilitative, and assistive contexts. Discussions emphasized the transformative potential of AI enabled robotics to improve precision, reduce provider burden, expand access to specialized care, and enhance patient outcomes particularly in undeserved regions and high risk procedural domains. Special attention was given to austere settings, disaster and relief and military settings. The workshop demonstrated broad consensus on the urgency of establishing a national Center for AI and Robotic Excellence in medicine (CARE). Stakeholders identified priority research thrusts including human robot collaboration, trustworthy autonomy, simulation and digital twins, multi modal sensing, and ethical integration of generative AI into clinical workflows. Participants also articulated the need for high quality datasets, shared test beds, autonomous surgical systems, clinically grounded benchmarks, and sustained interdisciplinary training mechanisms.

Problem

• robotics
• artificial intelligence
• healthcare
• clinical deployment
• regulatory pathways

Innovation

• trustworthy autonomy
• human-robot collaboration
• multimodal sensing
• digital twins
• generative AI in clinical workflows