AI exposure: Nurse Practitioners
Diagnose and treat acute, episodic, or chronic illness, independently or as part of a healthcare team. May focus on health promotion and disease prevention. May order, perform, or interpret diagnostic tests such as lab work and x rays. May prescribe medication. Must be registered nurses who have specialized graduate education.
Reading this score
computedAt 20.8% of weighted task load, Nurse Practitioners sits at the 37th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 50.4% 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 27 tasks it averages 2.60 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 Schedule follow-up visits to monitor patients or evaluate health or illness care, at 73.3%. The least is Perform primary care procedures such as suturing, splinting, administering immunizations,..., at 1.3%. A gap of 72.0% 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 more exposed than most. The median across the 89 roles in the group is 18.4%, and only 31 of them score higher than this. Occupational families are not uniform, and the spread inside them is often wider than the gap between them.
What would move this score. Of 27 tasks, 8 are currently banded exposed, 8 assisted and 11 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take a change in who is permitted to sign the work, which is a question for regulators rather than for engineers. 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 | 1.98 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 0.87 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 1.85 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 2.54 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.80 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 2.60 | 0-3 |
Task by task
27 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Schedule follow-up visits to monitor patients or evaluate health or illness care. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 4.45 | exposed |
| Provide patients or caregivers with assistance in locating health care resources. | 66.7% | 33.3% | 0.0% | 3.91 | exposed |
| Maintain complete and detailed records of patients' health care plans and prognoses. | 53.3% | 46.7% | 0.0% | 4.91 | exposed |
| Analyze and interpret patients' histories, symptoms, physical findings, or diagnostic information to develop appropriate diagnoses. | 40.0% | 35.0% | 25.0% | 4.82 | exposed |
| Recommend interventions to modify behavior associated with health risks. | 40.0% | 35.0% | 25.0% | 4.52 | exposed |
| Develop treatment plans, based on scientific rationale, standards of care, and professional practice guidelines. | 30.0% | 45.0% | 25.0% | 4.87 | assisted |
| Maintain current knowledge of state legal regulations for nurse practitioner practice, including reimbursement of services. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 4.55 | exposed |
| Read current literature, talk with colleagues, or participate in professional organizations or conferences to keep abreast of developments in nursing. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 4.50 | exposed |
| Keep abreast of regulatory processes and payer systems, such as Medicare, Medicaid, managed care, and private sources. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 3.83 | exposed |
| Counsel patients about drug regimens and possible side effects or interactions with other substances, such as food supplements, over-the-counter (OTC) medications, or herbal remedies. | 25.0% | 50.0% | 25.0% | 4.61 | assisted |
| Order, perform, or interpret the results of diagnostic tests, such as complete blood counts (CBCs), electrocardiograms (EKGs), and radiographs (x-rays). | 20.0% | 30.0% | 50.0% | 4.61 | assisted |
| Advocate for accessible health care that minimizes environmental health risks. | 20.0% | 30.0% | 50.0% | 4.23 | assisted |
| Consult with, or refer patients to, appropriate specialists when conditions exceed the scope of practice or expertise. | 15.0% | 35.0% | 50.0% | 4.52 | assisted |
| Provide patients with information needed to promote health, reduce risk factors, or prevent disease or disability. | 13.3% | 36.7% | 50.0% | 4.83 | assisted |
| Diagnose or treat chronic health care problems, such as high blood pressure and diabetes. | 10.0% | 40.0% | 50.0% | 4.74 | assisted |
| Prescribe medication dosages, routes, and frequencies, based on such patient characteristics as age and gender. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.78 | untouched |
| Prescribe medications based on efficacy, safety, and cost as legally authorized. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.74 | untouched |
| Diagnose or treat acute health care problems, such as illnesses, infections, or injuries. | 8.3% | 41.7% | 50.0% | 4.70 | assisted |
| Treat or refer patients for primary care conditions, such as headaches, hypertension, urinary tract infections, upper respiratory infections, and dermatological conditions. | 7.5% | 30.0% | 62.5% | 4.50 | untouched |
| Recommend diagnostic or therapeutic interventions with attention to safety, cost, invasiveness, simplicity, acceptability, adherence, and efficacy. | 6.7% | 18.3% | 75.0% | 4.73 | untouched |
| Diagnose or treat complex, unstable, comorbid, episodic, or emergency conditions in collaboration with other health care providers as necessary. | 6.2% | 31.2% | 62.5% | 4.78 | untouched |
| Educate patients about self-management of acute or chronic illnesses, tailoring instructions to patients' individual circumstances. | 5.0% | 20.0% | 75.0% | 4.59 | untouched |
| Maintain departmental policies and procedures in areas such as safety and infection control. | 5.0% | 20.0% | 75.0% | 4.41 | untouched |
| Supervise or coordinate patient care or support staff activities. | 5.0% | 20.0% | 75.0% | 3.83 | untouched |
| Detect and respond to adverse drug reactions, with special attention to vulnerable populations such as infants, children, pregnant and lactating women, or older adults. | 3.3% | 21.7% | 75.0% | 4.71 | untouched |
| Perform routine or annual physical examinations. | 3.3% | 21.7% | 75.0% | 4.45 | untouched |
| Perform primary care procedures such as suturing, splinting, administering immunizations, taking cultures, and debriding wounds. | 1.3% | 7.0% | 91.7% | 4.19 | 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.