Nurses Say HCA's Palantir-Built Scheduling Tool Causes Errors and Burnout

Since 2023, HCA Healthcare, the largest US hospital chain, has rolled out Timpani, an AI scheduling tool it co-developed with Palantir, at roughly 130 of its 190 locations. Nurses say it misassigns shifts and rarely honors their preferences.

Amber Retzloff, a Florida nurse and National Nurses United leader, requested 50 specific 12-hour shifts over four months. By her count, she got different slots more than half the time, often three days in a row. "No one is happy with Timpani," she says; five nurses elsewhere reported similar problems.

What nurses report

Nurses say the tool often schedules too few or too-junior staff, especially on Sundays. Trading shifts and appealing assignments now takes more time. Retzloff recalls a shift where all four colleagues were junior; as the only senior nurse, she delayed care for the sickest patients to guide novices.

Red days and a lawsuit

On average, Timpani schedules nurses on 1 percent of their requested days off, known as red days, HCA says. Lee Barker, a nurse in Missouri, says that was previously unheard of; now almost every nurse has been assigned a day off, and after failing to trade one, Barker delayed a doctor's appointment. "It feels like we're being kicked while we're already down," Barker says.

Problematic shifts now go to a centralized team at HCA's Nashville headquarters that reviews appeals without direct communication, and swaps succeed only about half the time. National Nurses United, which represents about 10,000 of HCA's 100,000 nurses, says HCA withheld information about the technology. In July, former data science manager Angelique Russell sued HCA, alleging she was fired over her Timpani concerns.

The same platform, another health system

Rayus Radiology, a large US imaging chain, was hit by scheduling-error complaints earlier this year after introducing a Palantir Foundry-based tool, internal documents viewed by WIRED show. The software fills scheduling fields from doctors' orders, but sometimes linked requests to wrong patient profiles, listed mismatched tests, or invented patient details. A Rayus spokesperson said the tool is meant to support, not replace, human judgment.

What HCA and Palantir say

HCA spokesperson Harlow Sumerford says nursing leaders, not Timpani, make final scheduling decisions, and rejects claims the tool is designed to cut staffing at the expense of care. HCA innovation executive Michael Schlosser wrote in July that Timpani sharply cut managers' scheduling hours, reduced reliance on costly contract nurses, and increased retention.

A Palantir spokesperson declined to be named; the company says its software presents information more helpfully and customers are responsible for data and decisions. Palantir's sales have nearly doubled to almost $2 billion per quarter. "Every month you hear, 'Man, why did it schedule me like that?'" Barker says.