Hospitalists

Provide inpatient care predominantly in settings such as medical wards, acute care units, intensive care units, rehabilitation centers, or emergency rooms. Manage and coordinate patient care throughout treatment.

The occupation of "Hospitalists" has an estimated automation risk of 42.1%, which is closely aligned with its calculated base risk of 42.9%. This moderate risk arises from the fact that many core responsibilities of hospitalists, such as diagnosing and treating inpatients, prescribing medications or treatment regimens, and ordering or interpreting test results, are increasingly being supported by technological advancements, including AI-powered diagnostic tools and electronic prescribing systems. These developments can automate routine clinical decision-making and improve workflow efficiency, but they cannot fully replace the nuanced clinical judgment, empathy, and interpersonal skills that human hospitalists provide. As a result, while a significant portion of hospitalist tasks are susceptible to automation, the occupation maintains a reduced risk compared to purely procedural or administrative roles. The top three tasks most susceptible to automation for hospitalists include diagnosing and treating inpatients, prescribing treatments, and ordering or interpreting laboratory or imaging results. Each of these activities involves decision-making processes that are structured and reliant on data, making them particularly amenable to AI and machine learning algorithms. For example, advanced decision support systems and image recognition software can assist in medication selection or the interpretation of radiographs, thereby streamlining routine aspects of inpatient care. However, automation in these domains is often supportive rather than directive, as hospitalists must integrate patient histories, values, and preferences into their medical decisions—factors still challenging for machines to fully understand and replicate. Conversely, the tasks least resistant to automation—such as training or supervising medical students and residents, directing the operations of hospital units, and leading quality improvement or safety programs—require high levels of originality, leadership, and interpersonal skills. These are considered "bottleneck skills" for automation, with originality, in particular, assessed at relatively low automatable levels (3.0% and 3.8%). Such skills demand creative problem-solving, adaptability, and the ability to mentor and motivate other healthcare professionals—attributes not easily encoded into automated systems. Therefore, despite some risk of automation in routine patient care processes, hospitalists’ roles in education, administration, and quality improvement will remain largely human-dependent, further mitigating the overall risk of this profession being fully automated.