Over half the time during a four-month period, a critical care nurse in Florida who requested 50 specific shifts found herself assigned to different ones by her hospital's Palantir-powered scheduling software, according to a WIRED investigation published this week. Since 2023, HCA Healthcare—the nation's largest hospital chain—has deployed an AI scheduling tool it co-developed with Palantir called Timpani at roughly 130 of its 190 facilities. Six nurses interviewed for the report said the software routinely creates imbalanced, understaffed, and exhausting schedules while ignoring their stated preferences for time off, shift spacing, and work-life balance.
The nurses allege Timpani schedules too few nurses or insufficient experienced staff during shifts, particularly on Sundays, potentially harming patients through inadequate care teams. One Florida nurse recalled recent shifts where all four of her colleagues were junior, forcing her to delay care for the sickest patients to guide novices through milder cases. On average, Timpani schedules nurses for 1 percent of their requested days off, known as red days, according to HCA—a figure one Missouri nurse said appears low but represents a dramatic change from when such assignments were previously unheard of at their facility. Nurses report spending more time trying to trade shifts or appeal schedules than before the software arrived, with swap success rates hovering around 50 percent. They also believe colleagues are increasingly calling out to skip assignments, though doing so more than a few times annually risks termination.
HCA spokesperson Harlow Sumerford says nursing leaders, not Timpani, make final scheduling decisions, and assertions that the tool "is designed to reduce staffing at the expense of patient care" are misrepresentative. The company's goal is "to have the right caregivers, with the right skills and experience, available to meet the needs of our patients while also considering our colleagues' scheduling preferences," Sumerford told WIRED, noting HCA continues to improve Timpani based on nurse feedback. In a July paper, HCA's top innovation executive Michael Schlosser wrote that Timpani has drastically cut the hours managers spend on scheduling each month, lowered reliance on costly contract nurses, and boosted retention, with over 98 percent of schedules including "a mix of skill and experiences."
The complaints mirror broader concerns about Palantir's push into health care. Rayus Radiology, a large US imaging chain, began receiving complaints about scheduling errors earlier this year after introducing a tool also built on Palantir Foundry, according to internal documents reviewed by WIRED. In several cases, the software linked doctors' orders to wrong patient profiles, listed tests that didn't match the orders, or fabricated personal details about patients. Timpani was built on the same platform, using algorithmic forecasts of patient volumes and staffing needs to automatically generate nursing schedules. When it launched in 2023, Schlosser told WIRED it would save time and money while eliminating favoritism in shift assignments. HCA's responsible AI policy emphasizes protecting individuals from physical or emotional harms, and executives said they consulted nurses and took an empathetic approach in developing Timpani.
Yet nurses say they feel ignored and disrespected. Initially, local managers could edit Timpani's schedules, but now nurses must flag problematic shifts to a centralized team at HCA headquarters in Nashville, which reviews appeals without direct communication or room for explanation. A union of about 500 nurses at one HCA psychiatric center filed a grievance arguing the company is failing to sufficiently honor scheduling preferences, a matter likely headed to arbitration. One Missouri nurse claims several colleagues quit over Timpani and that workplace injuries climbed in the first 12 months with the tool. Leaders of National Nurses United, the labor union representing about 10,000 of HCA's 100,000 nurses, say the company has rejected their requests for information about the technology. In Timpani's early days, Schlosser envisioned a future where frontline nurses actively pushed for more tools, saying "Then it'll be fun." Three years later, some nurses see little reason to celebrate. The technology sector's race to deploy AI-driven automation in high-stakes environments may be outpacing the organizational structures needed to ensure those tools serve both workers and the people who depend on them. As health systems weigh efficiency gains against frontline morale, the tension between algorithmic optimization and human judgment will shape whether these tools become assets or liabilities.