Nurses Rebel Against Palantir AI Scheduling Tool After Years of Chaos at Major US Hospital Chain

Critical care nurse Amber Retzloff requested 50 specific 12-hour shifts at her Florida hospital over four months. Palantir's scheduling algorithm assigned her to different shifts more than half the time, often stacking her back-to-back-to-back days until she was mentally exhausted. The system appeared far worse than the manual scheduling managers once did by hand.

Since 2023, HCA Healthcare—the nation's largest hospital chain—has deployed an AI tool called Timpani, developed jointly with Palantir, at roughly 130 of its 190 facilities. Retzloff's hospital adopted it nearly two years ago. Now, across multiple locations, nurses report the same frustration: Timpani routinely fails to honor their stated preferences, leaves units dangerously understaffed with inexperienced staff, and is forcing colleagues to waste time swapping shifts or appealing schedules.

The Human Cost of Automation#

Nurses allege the system has introduced real harms. Scheduling too few nursing veterans during certain shifts—particularly Sundays—has left care teams exhausted and inexperienced. Retzloff recalls shifts where she was the only senior nurse among three junior colleagues, forcing her to delay care for the sickest patients to teach the newcomers how to handle routine cases.

The tool also routinely schedules nurses on "red days"—dates they marked as unavailable. According to HCA data, Timpani assigns nurses to just 1 percent of requested days off. Yet at many facilities, this was previously unheard of. Lee Barker, a Missouri nurse, says virtually every nurse at his facility has now been scheduled to work at least one day they were supposed to have off. When Barker struggled to trade an assignment on a scheduled red day, he had to postpone a long-overdue medical appointment for a chronic condition.

The scheduling chaos has sparked unusual call-outs and staff churn. Some nurses skip shifts using accrued time rather than accept unwanted assignments, though repeated absences risk termination. Barker, a union leader, claims several colleagues quit over Timpani, and workplace injuries climbed in the first year after deployment.

Opacity and Retaliation Concerns#

HCA has made minor software tweaks in response to complaints, yet systemic problems persist. The company rejected requests from National Nurses United—representing about 10,000 of HCA's 100,000 nursing staff—for transparency about how the tool works.

In July, former HCA data science manager Angelique Russell filed a lawsuit claiming the company fired her in retaliation for raising safety concerns about Timpani. She alleged HCA systematically deleted data the tool relies on to build schedules, preventing audits of its performance and potentially breaching healthcare regulations.