Dental Hygienists

Administer oral hygiene care to patients. Assess patient oral hygiene problems or needs and maintain health records. Advise patients on oral health maintenance and disease prevention. May provide advanced care such as providing fluoride treatment or administering topical anesthesia.

The occupation of Dental Hygienists carries a relatively low automation risk of 12.4%, closely mirroring the base risk figure of 12.5%. This low risk is due largely to the nature of the work, which combines hands-on clinical procedures with interpersonal patient care. Many tasks performed by dental hygienists require judgment, dexterity, and patient interaction, areas where current artificial intelligence and robotics technologies face significant limitations. Although some aspects of the job could potentially be automated, most of the core duties rely on human perception and nuanced decision-making. For example, subtle changes in gum condition or patient discomfort may be difficult for machines to interpret as accurately as a trained human professional. The three most automatable tasks within this profession are "Record and review patient medical histories," "Feel and visually examine gums for sores and signs of disease," and "Examine gums, using probes, to locate periodontal recessed gums and signs of gum disease." These duties involve collection and analysis of routine information, which can be partially standardized and supported by decision-assist software or automation tools. However, even these tasks can require a degree of sensitivity and clinical judgment, especially when identifying early signs of disease or adapting to unique cases. Automation might streamline data entry and some diagnostic preliminaries, but complete replacement is unlikely in the near term. On the other hand, the role includes several tasks that remain highly resistant to automation, such as "Make impressions for study casts," "Conduct dental health clinics for community groups to augment services of dentist," and "Remove excess cement from coronal surfaces of teeth." These responsibilities require fine motor skills, adaptability, and in some cases, community education—skills for which machines have limited capabilities. The so-called "bottleneck skills" such as Originality, ranked at modest levels (2.6% and 2.1%), further buffer the occupation from automation. Creative problem-solving and the ability to deliver tailored care ensure that dental hygienists remain indispensable members of the healthcare team despite technological advancements.