A scheduling tool that HCA Healthcare built with Palantir is drawing anger from the nurses it manages. Since 2023 the hospital chain has rolled out Timpani across roughly 130 of its 190 locations, and nurses say it understaffs units, stacks shifts back to back, and ignores the days off they request.
Amber Retzloff, a critical care nurse in Florida, asked for 50 specific 12-hour shifts over four months. More than half the time she was assigned something else. “No one is happy with Timpani,” she said, a view echoed by five nurses elsewhere.
HCA says nurses are scheduled on just 1 percent of requested days off. Lee Barker, a nurse in Missouri, says that figure hides the change: getting scheduled on a red day used to be unheard of, and now nearly everyone has lost one.
Critics argue the tool erodes clinical judgment. Retzloff recalls shifts where all four colleagues were junior, forcing her to delay care for the sickest patients while she guided newcomers. Nurses say they now spend more time trading shifts and appealing schedules.
HCA spokesperson Harlow Sumerford says nursing leaders, not the software, make final calls, and that the goal is matching caregivers to patient needs.
