Acute Care Nurses
In short: today's best AI models could do about 62% of this job's working time (projected from METR's April 2026 measurement and Epoch's November 2026 index) if the work were set up for them, and about the same by the end of 2028 if progress keeps its long-run pace. The people and hands-on work, about 38% of the time, stays with people.
Provide advanced nursing care for patients with acute conditions such as heart attacks, respiratory distress syndrome, or shock. May care for pre- and post-operative patients or perform advanced, invasive diagnostic or therapeutic procedures.
$97,550 a year (for the broader BLS group this job sits in).
A typical 40-hour week
Not yet reviewed task by task- AI could take on25 h
- A person checks AI's work0 h
- Desk work AI can't do yet0 h
- Stays with people15 h
Acute Care Nurses, now: of a 40-hour week, AI could take on 25 hours, 0 hours become checking its work, 0 hours are desk work it can't do yet, and 15 hours stay with people.
The largest pieces: Document data related to patients' care, including assessment results, interventions, medications, patient responses, or treatment changes (about 3 h); Participate in patients' care meetings and conferences (about 2 h); Participate in the development of practice protocols (about 2 h).
Estimates for a typical week of this job, if progress keeps its long-run pace, counting work the best models finish four times in five. Every task is below.
of the working time. Now is projected from METR's April 2026 measurement and Epoch's November 2026 index.
- 62%
- 13%
- 24%
of the work: Anthropic's measure of what people already bring to Claude at work (2025). It counts help with part of a task, so it can be higher than the share within reach.
On the chosen pace and reliability. Estimate.
Share of the working time within reach, now to 2030
Change assumptionsHide assumptionsLong-run pace, four in five
What each choice means: , , , , . Every pace starts from .
At this date and pace, models finish tasks up to 2.4 work days long four times in five.
How far this has come
With GPT-4, measured in March 2023, 0% of this job's working time was within reach at . With Claude 3.7 Sonnet, measured in February 2025, 3%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 57%. Today's estimate: 62%.
A backcast: today's task data with the best model METR had measured by each date. It shows how fast the models have moved, not what anyone forecast at the time.
Measured use over time
Of the Claude.ai conversations Anthropic sampled and tied to a work task, 0.032% went to this job's tasks in May 2026, the 254th largest of the 447 jobs that showed up at all; 3 of its 27 tasks showed up. Within each of Anthropic's methods, never across a change: 0.04% to 0.045% (released February and March 2025); 0.015% to 0.019% (August 2025 to February 2026); 0.034% to 0.032% (April to May 2026).
Each release
| Conversations | Share | Rank | Tasks seen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Released February 2025 | 0.04% | 308 of 708 | 7 of 27 |
| Released March 2025 | 0.045% | 287 of 703 | 5 of 27 |
| The week of Aug 4, 2025 (released September 2025) | 0.015% | 403 of 655 | 5 of 27 |
| The week of Nov 13, 2025 (released January 2026) | 0.027% | 340 of 672 | 6 of 27 |
| The week of Feb 5, 2026 (released March 2026) | 0.019% | 404 of 677 | 4 of 27 |
| April 2026 (released June 2026) | 0.034% | 248 of 434 | 3 of 27 |
| May 2026 (released June 2026) | 0.032% | 254 of 447 | 3 of 27 |
Measured, not estimated: Anthropic's samples of Claude.ai conversations, each tied by a model to an O*NET task, from the Anthropic Economic Index. It says where Claude's use goes, not how much of this job's working time it covers, so it is not on the same scale as the reach above. The releases differ in their sample, their classifier and the smallest share they report (the June 2026 file rounds each task to a hundredth of a percent, so a smaller task reads as none), which is why a change of method starts a new line. At least 96% of each older release's task-tied use matched this site's tasks, and all of the newest. Claude.ai only, so use through other tools and other companies' models is not in it. Every job ranked.
Robots and the physical work
Anthropic rates 39% of this job's working time as physical work. For 1% of the working time, a robot has been shown doing most of the task somewhere: 1% in a structured facility. 0.03 of 3, the 623rd highest of the 923 jobs.
- Not physical 61%
- No robot shown 38%
- In a structured facility 1%
Anthropic's rating, not this site's estimate: Claude Opus 5, searching the web, rated each physical O*NET task by the kind of setting in which a robot it could cite (deployed, sold or demonstrated) does most of the task, weighted by its own estimate of each task's share of the time (What work can robots do?, September 30, 2026, data CC BY 4.0; every job ranked). A robot shown somewhere is not a robot in your building: cost, setup and safety decide that. The share within reach on this page still counts no body work. The robot behind each rated task is under the task below.
The tasks
Sorted by . 27 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manage patients' pain relief and sedation by providing pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions, monitoring patients' responses, and changing care plans accordingly.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 8% | 25 min13 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Document data related to patients' care, including assessment results, interventions, medications, patient responses, or treatment changes.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 7% | 17 min8 min to 29 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Participate in patients' care meetings and conferences.Done daily by most who do it. | 6% | 50 min25 min to 1.7 h | 100%Half by now | |
| Participate in the development of practice protocols.Done more than yearly by most who do it. | 6% | 2.5 h50 min to 6.7 h | 96%Half by now | |
| Set up, operate, or monitor invasive equipment and devices, such as colostomy or tracheotomy equipment, mechanical ventilators, catheters, gastrointestinal tubes, and central lines.Done several times a day by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 5% | 29 min13 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Discuss illnesses and treatments with patients and family members.Done several times a day by most who do it. | 5% | 17 min8 min to 33 min | Stays with people | |
| Provide formal and informal education to other staff members.Done daily by most who do it. | 5% | 38 min13 min to 1.7 h | 100%Half by now | |
| Diagnose acute or chronic conditions that could result in rapid physiological deterioration or life-threatening instability.Done several times a day by most who do it. | 5% | 25 min13 min to 50 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Assess urgent and emergent health conditions, using both physiologically and technologically derived data.Done several times a day by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 5% | 21 min8 min to 50 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Distinguish between normal and abnormal developmental and age-related physiological and behavioral changes in acute, critical, and chronic illness.Done daily by most who do it. | 5% | 21 min8 min to 50 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Assess the needs of patients' family members or caregivers.Done daily by most who do it. | 5% | 17 min8 min to 38 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Collaborate with members of multidisciplinary health care teams to plan, manage, or assess patient treatments.Done daily by most who do it. | 5% | 21 min8 min to 50 min | Stays with people |
Within reach, per task: the share of the task's time whose instances are short enough for a model to finish at the chosen date, pace and reliability. Half by: the date half of that time comes within reach.
Jobs that share skills with this one
From O*NET's related occupations. Within reach now and by the end of 2028, long-run pace, four in five.
Where this job works
The industry groups that employ the most of it (BLS, May 2025). Counts are for the broader BLS group this job sits in.
Where the most of these jobs are
The metro areas with the most people in it (BLS, May 2025). Counts are for the broader BLS group this job sits in.
Questions about this job
- How much of the work of Acute Care Nurses is within reach of AI now?
- An estimated 62% of the working time is within reach of AI models now and 62% by the end of 2028, on METR's long-run pace at four in five. Within reach means a model could finish work that long at that reliability. It is not a forecast of jobs lost or of savings.
- Which tasks of Acute Care Nurses come within reach first?
- Weighted by the time each takes, the tasks with the most within reach now (projected from METR's April 2026 measurement and Epoch's November 2026 index) are: Document data related to patients' care, including assessment results, interventions, medications, patient responses, or treatment changes (100% of the task's time now); Participate in patients' care meetings and conferences (100% of the task's time now); and Participate in the development of practice protocols (96% of the task's time now).
- Which tasks of Acute Care Nurses stay with people?
- Tasks that are people work or body work are not counted as within reach at any date. The largest: Manage patients' pain relief and sedation by providing pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions, monitoring patients' responses, and changing care plans accordingly; Set up, operate, or monitor invasive equipment and devices, such as colostomy or tracheotomy equipment, mechanical ventilators, catheters, gastrointestinal tubes, and central lines; and Discuss illnesses and treatments with patients and family members. Together such tasks are about 38% of the working time.
- Do people already use AI for the work of Acute Care Nurses?
- In the Claude.ai conversations Anthropic sampled for May 2026 and tied to a work task, 0.032% went to this job's tasks, the 254th largest share of the 447 jobs that showed up; 3 of its 27 tasks appeared. Anthropic's labor market measure puts the share of the job's tasks seen in real Claude use at work at 6%. These are measures of use, not of how much of the work AI could finish, and they cover Claude only.
- Can robots do the physical work of Acute Care Nurses?
- Anthropic's robot exposure rating (September 2026) finds 39% of the working time is physical work, and that a robot has been shown doing most of the task, somewhere, for 1% of the working time, 1% in a structured facility. Its index is 0.03 of 3. One example: Closed-loop vasopressor (CLV) controller driving a norepinephrine infusion pump for "adjust settings on patients' assistive devices, such as temporary pacemakers". A robot shown somewhere is not one in every workplace; this site's own estimates still count no physical work as within reach.
- How is this estimated?
- From the 27 tasks O*NET lists for the occupation, each with an estimated length checked against GDPval and a share of the working time, each classed as desk, people or body work, and METR's measurements of how long a task the best AI models can finish, carried forward to the date from the latest, Claude Mythos Preview (early) in April 2026. Data checked November 10, 2026.
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