Nurses say an AI scheduling tool creates extra work

Timpani is an AI tool built by Palantir for HCA Healthcare, a hospital operator. It helps create nurses’ work schedules: who works on which days and shifts.

WIRED interviewed six nurses about the tool. They said they had to spend time fixing their schedules. One nurse, Amber Retzloff, said it failed to follow more than half of her 50 shift requests. Nurses also reported shifts with too few nurses or too few experienced staff.

HCA says Timpani saves managers time. It also says nursing leaders still have the final say on schedules.

To understand whether the tool helps overall, we need to count both the time managers save and the time nurses spend fixing schedules.