Will AI replace Home Health Aides?
Healthcare Support · O*NET 31-1121.00
Task exposure index for this occupation
Averaged across the week, this work sits at the low end of the exposure scale — most of it is not the kind current systems do well. O*NET breaks Home Health Aides into 10 distinct work activities. Weighted by how much of the week each one takes, 10% of the job sits at or above the threshold where current systems can do the task end to end. The single largest contributor is "Maintain medical records", which scores 95 and takes roughly 10% of the week. That is the average for the job title. It is not a measurement of any particular person’s week, and the difference between the two is usually larger than the difference between job titles.
Model v1.2 · activity indices last updated 18 August 2026
What this occupation does
Monitor the health status of an individual with disabilities or illness, and address their health-related needs, such as changing bandages, dressing wounds, or administering medication. Work is performed under the direction of offsite or intermittent onsite licensed nursing staff. Provide assistance with routine healthcare tasks or activities of daily living, such as feeding, bathing, toileting, or ambulation. May also help with tasks such as preparing meals, doing light housekeeping, and doing laundry depending on the patient's abilities.
The most exposed parts of the job
Scored 0–100 on how completely a current system could perform the activity.
- Maintain medical records.95
About 10% of a typical week
- Engage patients in exercises or activities.40
About 14% of a typical week
- Assess physical conditions of patients to aid in diagnosis or treatment.36
About 7% of a typical week
- Teach basic living or other adaptive skills to patients or caregivers.34
About 6% of a typical week
- Administer therapy treatments to patients using hands or physical treatment aids.18
About 5% of a typical week
The least exposed parts
The same scale. These are the activities current systems handle worst.
- Accompany patients or clients on outings to provide assistance.5
About 11% of a typical week
- Feed patients.8
About 8% of a typical week
- Assist patients with daily activities.18
About 31% of a typical week
- Apply bandages, dressings, or splints.18
About 3% of a typical week
- Give medications or immunizations.18
About 6% of a typical week
How far off the rest is
Of those 10 activities, 1 can be performed by systems available today and 7 are outside what current approaches do at all. The remaining 2 sit in between — demonstrated in research or in narrow products, but not something you can hand over whole. We do not put dates on that middle group, because nobody can.
Compared with similar occupations
The nearest scoring roles in Healthcare Support.
- Home Health Aides (this page)28
- Phlebotomists29
- Physical Therapist Aides30
- Veterinary Assistants and Laboratory Animal Caretakers30
Why your own number is different
Two people with the title "Home Health Aides" can spend their weeks on almost entirely different parts of this list, and the parts they choose move the number far more than the title does. Who signs off when the work is wrong, whether the job needs you physically present, and how fast you have picked up the tools all change it again — and none of that is in an occupation average.
The assessment asks you to divide your own week across these activities and answer fourteen questions about the parts of the job an occupation average cannot see. It takes six to nine minutes.
Score my own roleFree to take. The full report is a paid subscription — the price and its terms are on the pricing section, before you start.
Questions
Will AI replace Home Health Aides?
We do not answer that, because nobody can. What is measurable is how much of the work is already doable by machine: for Home Health Aides, about 10% of a typical week, across 10 activities. The other 90% is not, and what happens to the job depends on things this index does not contain — cost, regulation, who carries the liability, and what the people doing it decide to do next.
What part of this job is most exposed?
"Maintain medical records" — it scores 95 out of 100 on task automatability and takes roughly 10% of the week.
What part is least exposed?
"Accompany patients or clients on outings to provide assistance", at 5 out of 100. Work like that is where the hours you protect tend to be worth the most.
Where do these numbers come from?
The activity list and the time weights come from O*NET 30.3, the US Department of Labor's occupational database. The exposure score for each activity is ours, from a published model — the weights, the priors and the limitations are all on the methodology page. No language model is involved in the arithmetic.
Does this apply to my job?
Only roughly. This is the average for the title, and the number that matters is the one for the week you actually work. The assessment asks you to divide your own time across these activities and answer fourteen questions about accountability, the parts of the job that need you specifically, and how fast you have adapted. That produces a different number, and usually a more useful one.
The full model — the weights, the priors and what it cannot see — is on the methodology page.