AI exposure: Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses
Care for ill, injured, or convalescing patients or persons with disabilities in hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, private homes, group homes, and similar institutions. May work under the supervision of a registered nurse. Licensing required.
Reading this score
computedAt 18.3% of weighted task load, Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses sits at the 31th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 61.7% of what this role does is untouched, meaning current systems cannot produce that work at all, whatever the commercial incentive.
What holds the line here is verification cost. Across this occupation's 22 tasks it averages 2.02 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, checking the output costs more than producing it. Where an undetected error is expensive, dangerous or irreversible, the economics change. Someone has to verify the work, and verifying can cost as much as doing it. This is the friction most likely to fall as tools for checking improve.
The most exposed thing this job does is Answer patients' calls and determine how to assist them, at 70.0%. The least is Clean rooms and make beds, at 0.0%. A gap of 70.0% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within healthcare practitioner and technical occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 18.5% across the group's 89 roles, with 46 scoring higher. Being in an exposed family does not make a particular job exposed, and the reverse holds too.
What would move this score. Of 22 tasks, 4 are currently banded exposed, 6 assisted and 12 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 1.42 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 1.88 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 1.88 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 1.87 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.50 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 2.02 | 0-3 |
Task by task
22 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answer patients' calls and determine how to assist them. | 70.0% | 17.5% | 12.5% | 4.43 | exposed |
| Make appointments, keep records, or perform other clerical duties in doctors' offices or clinics. | 57.0% | 34.6% | 8.3% | 4.18 | exposed |
| Record food and fluid intake and output. | 53.3% | 46.7% | 0.0% | 4.21 | exposed |
| Inventory and requisition supplies and instruments. | 43.8% | 18.8% | 37.5% | 3.58 | exposed |
| Evaluate nursing intervention outcomes, conferring with other healthcare team members as necessary. | 35.0% | 40.0% | 25.0% | 4.34 | assisted |
| Measure and record patients' vital signs, such as height, weight, temperature, blood pressure, pulse, or respiration. | 29.2% | 33.3% | 37.5% | 4.55 | assisted |
| Observe patients, charting and reporting changes in patients' conditions, such as adverse reactions to medication or treatment, and taking any necessary action. | 20.8% | 41.7% | 37.5% | 4.66 | assisted |
| Prepare or examine food trays for conformance to prescribed diet. | 20.0% | 30.0% | 50.0% | 4.09 | assisted |
| Administer prescribed medications or start intravenous fluids, noting times and amounts on patients' charts. | 15.0% | 35.0% | 50.0% | 4.48 | assisted |
| Work as part of a healthcare team to assess patient needs, plan and modify care, and implement interventions. | 13.3% | 36.7% | 50.0% | 4.25 | assisted |
| Collect samples, such as blood, urine, or sputum from patients, and perform routine laboratory tests on samples. | 6.7% | 18.3% | 75.0% | 4.17 | untouched |
| Prepare patients for examinations, tests, or treatments and explain procedures. | 6.7% | 18.3% | 75.0% | 3.98 | untouched |
| Supervise nurses' aides or assistants. | 5.0% | 20.0% | 75.0% | 4.40 | untouched |
| Provide medical treatment or personal care to patients in private home settings, such as cooking, keeping rooms orderly, seeing that patients are comfortable and in good spirits, or instructing family members in simple nursing tasks. | 3.8% | 8.8% | 87.5% | 4.41 | untouched |
| Provide basic patient care or treatments, such as taking temperatures or blood pressures, dressing wounds, treating bedsores, giving enemas or douches, rubbing with alcohol, massaging, or performing catheterizations. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.46 | untouched |
| Assemble and use equipment, such as catheters, tracheotomy tubes, or oxygen suppliers. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.21 | untouched |
| Help patients with bathing, dressing, maintaining personal hygiene, moving in bed, or standing and walking. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.06 | untouched |
| Apply compresses, ice bags, or hot water bottles. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.97 | untouched |
| Sterilize equipment and supplies, using germicides, sterilizer, or autoclave. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.36 | untouched |
| Set up equipment and prepare medical treatment rooms. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.98 | untouched |
| Wash and dress bodies of deceased persons. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.66 | untouched |
| Clean rooms and make beds. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.64 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.