Jobs / Healthcare / 29-2061.00

Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses

Care for ill, injured, or convalescing patients or persons with disabilities in hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, private homes, group homes, and similar institutions. May work under the supervision of a registered nurse. Licensing required.

US jobs
648,410
Median wage
$64,400 a year
Job family
Healthcare

Can agents do the work of licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses?

We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Healthcare:

  • Task levelPartialOne benchmark, from early 2025. On Stanford's MedAgentBench, where agents do clinical tasks in a simulated electronic health record, the best recorded model completes 69.7% of tasks (Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2). It has no maintained leaderboard, so newer models are not measured. No benchmark in our collection tests work with patients.
  • Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. GDPval includes nurses among its 44 occupations. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all occupations. No benchmark in our collection tests clinical work over days, such as managing a patient's care.

Benchmarks for the job family

These cover work in healthcare, not always this occupation's tasks.

  • GDPvalby OpenAIProject level · Wins plus ties against experts
    84.9%GPT-5.5 · Apr 2026
    Strong
  • GDPval-AAby Artificial AnalysisProject level · GDPval-AA Elo
    1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026
    Unrated
  • MedAgentBenchby Stanford UniversityTask level · Task success rate
    69.7%Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2 · 24 Jan 2025
    Strong

Typical tasks

From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.

  • Observe patients, charting and reporting changes in patients' conditions, such as adverse reactions to medication or treatment, and taking any necessary action.
  • Measure and record patients' vital signs, such as height, weight, temperature, blood pressure, pulse, or respiration.
  • Administer prescribed medications or start intravenous fluids, noting times and amounts on patients' charts.
  • Provide basic patient care or treatments, such as taking temperatures or blood pressures, dressing wounds, treating bedsores, giving enemas or douches, rubbing with alcohol, massaging, or performing catheterizations.
  • Answer patients' calls and determine how to assist them.
  • Supervise nurses' aides or assistants.
  • Evaluate nursing intervention outcomes, conferring with other healthcare team members as necessary.
  • Work as part of a healthcare team to assess patient needs, plan and modify care, and implement interventions.
  • Record food and fluid intake and output.
  • Assemble and use equipment, such as catheters, tracheotomy tubes, or oxygen suppliers.
  • Collect samples, such as blood, urine, or sputum from patients, and perform routine laboratory tests on samples.
  • Prepare or examine food trays for conformance to prescribed diet.
Other job titles for this occupation (16)

Charge Nurse · Clinic Licensed Practical Nurse (Clinic LPN) · Clinic Nurse · Home Health Licensed Practical Nurse (Home Health LPN) · Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) · Office Nurse · Pediatric LPN (Pediatric Licensed Practical Nurse) · Private Duty Nurse · Radiation Oncology Nurse · Triage LPN (Triage Licensed Practical Nurse) · Licensed Care Coordinator (LCC) · Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) · Long Term Care LPN (Long Term Care Licensed Practical Nurse) · Medical LPN (Medical Licensed Practical Nurse) · Nursing Home LPN (Nursing Home Licensed Practical Nurse) · Private Duty Licensed Practical Nurse (Private Duty LPN)