Health Care Workers Are Tired of Cleaning Up Palantir’s Mess
A hospital giant and radiology network turned to Palantir to streamline scheduling, but nurses and other staff say the new software is causing errors, burnout, and frustration.
Health care workers are growing increasingly frustrated with Palantir's AI scheduling tool, Timpani, which has been rolled out by hospital chain HCA Healthcare at many of its 190 locations. According to nurses, the tool has caused staffing issues, with care teams often understaffed, imbalanced, and exhausted. It has reportedly scheduled too few nurses, particularly on Sundays, and ignored nurses' preferences for shift spacing and specific days off.
As a result, nurses must spend more time trading shifts or appealing their schedules, which can lead to termination if done too frequently. One nurse, 34-year-old Retzloff, described having to delay care for the sickest patients due to an all-junior team. Previously, managers handled scheduling manually and consulted nurses in advance, but with Timpani, nurses report making alternative arrangements on shorter notice and experiencing an increase in temporary reassignments to different teams.
HCA spokesperson Harlow Sumerford maintains that nursing leaders, not the tool, make final scheduling decisions, and that the goal is to have the right caregivers available while considering colleagues' preferences. However, nurses complain that the tool schedules them for 1% of their requested red days, leading to feelings of being kicked while down.
Complaints have prompted minor updates to the software, but problems persist. Palantir's Timpani tool, built on its Foundry platform, uses algorithmic forecasts to create nursing schedules, aiming to save time and money and eliminate favoritism.
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