Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare has developed a digital nursing scheduling platform with data company Palantir to ease workforce shortages and improve retention among its 36,000 nurses, leaders at the 186-hospital system said.
Since the two entities began partnering in January, they built a system that automatically generates schedules for nurses, according to a presentation by Canaan Stage, BSN, RN, assistant vice president of clinical operations for HCA, and Ben Spears, director of management engineering at HCA, at Palantir's AIPCon customer event in June. HCA plans to integrate another five hospitals in August, with a goal of reaching 40 by March.
The partnership continues Palantir's push into healthcare. The company recently inked a 10-year deal with Cleveland Clinic to predict patient demand, and is also collaborating with Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital on analytics.
At HCA, nurses get talent profiles with the kinds of roles they can perform and their scheduling preferences, data that is merged with volume demand predictions to automatically generate a schedule (that is then reviewed by a manager), Mr. Spears explained at the event. The new process has reduced the time it takes to create schedules from 10 to 20 hours a month to one.
HCA is also using the platform to identify the root causes of turnover and improve the orientation process, like whether it's better to have one preceptor or multiple, Mr. Spears noted.
Mr. Stage called the platform "transformational."
"As a nurse myself, it's empowered nurses to have better conversations about needs, better conversations about how we support each other, and better conversations about how we deliver the very best care we can possibly have," he said at the conference. "The feedback from our frontline team members obviously is one that can be a little bit uncomfortable at times, but overall, time and time again, we hear the words 'thank you.'"