AI exposure: Physician Assistants
Provide healthcare services typically performed by a physician, under the supervision of a physician. Conduct complete physicals, provide treatment, and counsel patients. May, in some cases, prescribe medication. Must graduate from an accredited educational program for physician assistants.
Reading this score
computedAt 20.2% of weighted task load, Physician Assistants sits at the 36th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 52.9% 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 accountability. Across this occupation's 12 tasks it averages 2.64 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, someone licensed has to sign the work. Capability and permission are different things. Where a statute or a professional body requires a named, liable human to approve the output, the work can be drafted by a machine and still require the person.
The most exposed thing this job does is Order medical and laboratory supplies and equipment, at 60.0%. The least is Provide physicians with assistance during surgery or complicated medical procedures, at 0.0%. A gap of 60.0% 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 35 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 12 tasks, 3 are currently banded exposed, 4 assisted and 5 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 | 1.86 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 1.06 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 1.68 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 2.64 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.79 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 2.64 | 0-3 |
Task by task
12 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Order medical and laboratory supplies and equipment. | 60.0% | 15.0% | 25.0% | 3.31 | exposed |
| Interpret diagnostic test results for deviations from normal. | 40.0% | 35.0% | 25.0% | 4.92 | exposed |
| Instruct and counsel patients about prescribed therapeutic regimens, normal growth and development, family planning, emotional problems of daily living, and health maintenance. | 40.0% | 35.0% | 25.0% | 4.76 | exposed |
| Obtain, compile, and record patient medical data, including health history, progress notes, and results of physical examination. | 35.0% | 40.0% | 25.0% | 4.92 | assisted |
| Visit and observe patients on hospital rounds or house calls, updating charts, ordering therapy, and reporting back to physician. | 20.7% | 37.6% | 41.7% | 4.52 | assisted |
| Make tentative diagnoses and decisions about management and treatment of patients. | 20.0% | 55.0% | 25.0% | 4.94 | assisted |
| Administer or order diagnostic tests, such as x-ray, electrocardiogram, and laboratory tests. | 20.0% | 30.0% | 50.0% | 4.86 | assisted |
| Prescribe therapy or medication with physician approval. | 7.5% | 17.5% | 75.0% | 4.92 | untouched |
| Supervise and coordinate activities of technicians and technical assistants. | 5.0% | 20.0% | 75.0% | 3.68 | untouched |
| Examine patients to obtain information about their physical condition. | 3.3% | 21.7% | 75.0% | 4.92 | untouched |
| Perform therapeutic procedures, such as injections, immunizations, suturing and wound care, and infection management. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.53 | untouched |
| Provide physicians with assistance during surgery or complicated medical procedures. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.29 | 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.