Report for NSF Workshop on Algorithm-Hardware Co-design for Medical Applications

2026-03-11

AI Summary

This work addresses the critical gap in systematic algorithm-hardware co-design frameworks within medical computing, which hinders the development and translation of next-generation healthcare technologies. Focusing on four key domains—telemedicine, wearable/implantable devices, home-based ICUs, and medical perceptual imaging—the project proposes a novel development paradigm centered on clinical workflow awareness, human–machine collaboration, physics-informed integration, and verifiable ecosystems. By integrating interdisciplinary approaches that combine algorithm-hardware co-design, physics-informed modeling, and digital-physical hybrid platforms, the study establishes a standardized infrastructure pathway. It further offers strategic recommendations to the National Science Foundation, advocating for shared data and computational facilities alongside scalable validation frameworks to accelerate the safe and reliable translation of medical technologies.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Hardware-aware ML
• Computer Vision: Medical and Biological Imaging
• Humans and AI: Other Foundations of Human Computation & AI

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: Human-perceived consequences of algorithmic deployment on the web
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems

Abstract

This report summarizes the discussions and recommendations from the NSF Workshop on Algorithm-Hardware Co-design for Medical Applications, held on September 26-27, 2024, in Pittsburgh, PA. The workshop assembled an interdisciplinary cohort of researchers, clinicians, and industry leaders to examine foundational challenges and develop a strategic roadmap for algorithm-hardware co-design in medical computing. The workshop focuses on four thematic areas: (1) teleoperations, telehealth, and surgical operations; (2) wearable and implantable medicine, including implantable living pharmacies; (3) home ICU, hospital systems, and elderly care; and (4) medical sensing, imaging, and reconstruction. This report calls for a fundamental shift in how next-generation medical technologies are conceived, designed, validated, and translated into practice. The report recommends that NSF sustain investment in shared standardized data infrastructures and compute infrastructures, develop clinic workflow-aware systems and human-AI collaboration frameworks, promote scalable validation ecosystems grounded in objective, continuous measures, and physics-informed, and enable safe, accountable, and resilient platforms, including virtual-physical healthcare ecosystems, to de-risk translational pathways. The workshop information can be found on the website: https://sites.google.com/view/nsfworkshop.

Problem

• algorithm-hardware co-design
• medical applications
• telehealth
• wearable medicine
• medical imaging

Innovation

• algorithm-hardware co-design
• medical computing
• physics-informed validation
• human-AI collaboration
• virtual-physical healthcare