The Pulse
Palantir Scheduling Tools Draw Error Complaints From Health Workers
Nurses at HCA Healthcare say Palantir-powered scheduling software overrides preferences and can leave shifts short of experienced staff. Workers at radiology chain Rayus also report software errors, including mismatched patient profiles and
AI.info Team · Written with AI ·
“We are overriding clinical judgment and the human-to-human piece of health care with an app.”
Amber Retzloff, critical care nurse in Florida, speaking to WIRED
On October 2, WIRED reported that nurses at HCA Healthcare and workers at Rayus Radiology are reporting errors and extra work tied to software built on Palantir technology. The accounts describe two different systems: Timpani, a scheduling tool co-developed by HCA and Palantir, and a Rayus tool that fills in appointment details from doctors’ orders. The reported problems include unwanted shifts, mismatched patient records and scan requests that do not match orders. They are workers’ accounts, not a published clinical audit establishing that the software caused patient harm.
HCA nurses say Timpani ignores shift preferences
HCA, the largest US hospital chain, has deployed Timpani at roughly 130 of its 190 locations since 2023. The software, built on Palantir’s Foundry platform, uses forecasts of patient volumes and staffing needs to generate nursing schedules. Critical care nurse Amber Retzloff told WIRED that over four months she requested 50 specific 12-hour shifts, but the software assigned her different shifts more than half the time.
Nurses interviewed by WIRED say schedules can leave shifts short of experienced staff, particularly on Sundays, and often fail to honor requests about days off, nights or spacing between shifts. Retzloff described a recent shift when she was the only senior nurse among four colleagues; she says she had to delay care for the sickest patients while helping newer staff handle less severe cases. Nurses also report spending more time trading shifts or appealing assignments than they did under manual scheduling.
HCA spokesperson Harlow Sumerford says nursing leaders, not Timpani, make final scheduling decisions. He rejects the claim that the tool is designed to reduce staffing at patients’ expense, saying HCA wants the right caregivers and skills available while considering workers’ preferences, and continues to improve the system based on nurses’ feedback.
Appeals and red-day assignments add to the dispute
HCA says Timpani assigns nurses to about 1 percent of the days they requested off, known internally as red days. Lee Barker, an HCA nurse in Missouri, told WIRED that such assignments were previously uncommon at their facility and says that, less than a year after Timpani arrived, nearly every nurse had been scheduled on a requested day off. Barker says they postponed a doctor’s appointment after struggling to trade one such shift.
Nurses say local managers once had more ability to adjust schedules, while appeals now go to a centralized HCA team in Nashville. According to the nurses, that process leaves little room to explain a problem directly, and attempts to trade a shift after an appeal is rejected succeed about half the time. National Nurses United, which WIRED says represents about 10,000 of HCA’s 100,000 nurses, has asked the company for information about the technology, according to union leaders cited in the story.
The dispute also has a legal dimension. Former HCA data science manager Angelique Russell sued the company in July, alleging she was fired in retaliation for raising concerns about Timpani and claiming HCA routinely deleted data the software used to generate schedules. WIRED reported that HCA had not formally responded in court at the time of publication; Russell declined to comment.
Rayus workers describe a different set of errors
At Rayus Radiology, schedulers began raising concerns earlier in 2026 about a separate tool built on Palantir Foundry. Internal documents reviewed by WIRED and worker accounts describe cases in which the system linked requests to the wrong patient profiles, listed tests or scans that did not match doctors’ orders, or supplied personal details that were not in the source information. Rayus schedulers suspect non-standard forms, hard-to-read handwriting and insufficient human review contributed to the problems.
Rayus spokesperson Kit Crancer says the complaints do not fairly represent the company’s processes, safeguards or commitment to patient care. He says its technology supports rather than replaces human judgment and oversight. Palantir declined to provide an on-the-record comment to WIRED; the company has said customers are responsible for the data and decisions surrounding its software.
Efficiency claims meet the work of correcting mistakes
HCA has presented Timpani as a way to save managers’ time, reduce reliance on contract nurses and improve retention. In a paper published in July, HCA innovation executive Michael Schlosser wrote that more than 98 percent of the schedules included a mix of skills and experience. Nurses’ accounts point to a different measure of performance: whether a schedule fits the needs of a specific shift and whether staff can get an error corrected without a drawn-out appeal.
The two sets of accounts do not establish that every reported mistake stems from Palantir’s software, or that the tools have caused documented patient injuries. They do show how the consequences of a bad assignment or an incorrect scheduling field can land on workers who must spot and repair it. At HCA, that repair can mean trading a shift or escalating an appeal; at Rayus, schedulers say it can mean catching a wrong patient or scan before an appointment proceeds.