Will AI replace Medical Equipment Preparers?
AI reaches little of this job’s work.
4/100
Low exposure
More exposed to AI than 10% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 0% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 7% of the work
What the job involves
Prepare, sterilize, install, or clean laboratory or healthcare equipment. May perform routine laboratory tasks and operate or inspect equipment.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Within reach(1)
- Record sterilizer test results.
Out of reach(15)
- Examine equipment to detect leaks, worn or loose parts, or other indications of disrepair.
- Check sterile supplies to ensure that they are not outdated.
- Organize and assemble routine or specialty surgical instrument trays or other sterilized supplies, filling special requests as needed.
- Report defective equipment to appropriate supervisors or staff.
- Clean instruments to prepare them for sterilization.
and 10 more
Also called
Central Sterile Technician (Central Sterile Tech) · Certified Registered Central Service Technician (CRCST) · CSS Technician (Central Sterile Supply Technician) · Sterile Preparation Technician (Sterile Preparation Tech) · Sterile Processing and Distribution Technician (SPD Tech) · Central Sterile Processing Technician (Central Sterile Processing Tech) · Central Sterile Processing Tech · Central Sterile Tech
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What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics