Forward-looking: At Tampa General Hospital in Florida, a real-time data platform is changing how doctors spot one of medicine's deadliest conditions. The system, developed with Palantir, pulls together data from across the hospital – vital signs, lab results, clinician notes – and analyzes it continuously to flag early signs of sepsis. Since it was introduced, staff say they are catching sepsis earlier and seeing fewer patients die from it.
The system is estimated to have helped save 886 lives since August 2022. Sepsis is notoriously difficult to catch early. It can begin with small shifts in vital signs that do not immediately stand out – slight increases in heart rate, minor temperature changes, subtle indicators that can easily be lost in the noise of a busy hospital floor. Once it takes hold, though, it can escalate quickly, triggering organ failure and, in many cases, death. Roughly one in five patients diagnosed with sepsis does not survive.
The approach at Tampa General is built around catching early signals before they develop into a crisis. The hospital partnered with Palantir to use its Foundry platform alongside existing clinical systems.
The result is a continuous stream of aggregated data pulled from electronic health records, lab results, clinician notes and bedside monitors. Instead of sitting in separate systems, that data is unified and presented in real time through a centralized dashboard that tracks roughly 1,000 patients at once.
From there, the software looks for patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed. When those patterns suggest the early stages of sepsis, alerts are sent to a rapid response team, giving clinicians a chance to act before the condition worsens. At Tampa General, patients flagged with suspected sepsis get antibiotics within an hour.
For doctors and nurses on the floors, the impact is not just abstract. Dr. Jaimie Weber, vice president of medical informatics at Tampa General Hospital, said the results are evident in both the data and the discharges. "This is someone's mother, brother, sister that is going home, when before this project and these tools they would not have. From a clinical perspective, it's a game-changer," she told The Times. She pointed to the system's ability to detect early warning signs that clinicians might not immediately flag in the rush of daily work.
"Sepsis is something where time is of the essence. Diagnosing sepsis in a timely manner and getting appropriate antibiotics and appropriate treatment to the patients is what saves lives," Weber said.
Hospital data backs up that view. Analysis at Tampa General shows early deaths from sepsis are down 68% and sepsis patients are spending about 30% less time in the hospital.
Inside Tampa General, the Sepsis Hub is now one of more than 60 tools built on top of Palantir's software. The hospital's collaboration with the company began in 2021 and has since expanded. According to Etter Hoang, the hospital's chief data and analytics officer, the goal has been to turn a growing volume of digital information into something clinicians can act on quickly.
"We sit Palantir's toolsets on top of the data that's coming from our [electronic patient record] and from our machines," Hoang said, adding that the broader impact extends beyond sepsis detection. "A lot of our work with Palantir spans around being able to prioritize patients and reduce a lot of clinical variations out there. It allows clinical teams to better communicate with one another, [and improve] how quickly we place patients in the right bed, getting them to services as quickly as possible."
Outside Florida, similar technology is already in use, but often for different purposes. In the UK, Palantir's software is embedded in the National Health Service as part of its federated data platform. It is used to connect patient records and manage waiting lists, and more than half of NHS trusts are using the platform. Officials say it has helped deliver 110,000 additional operations while reducing long waits for cancer diagnoses.
So far, though, the NHS has largely refrained from using the system for real-time clinical decision support in areas such as early sepsis detection. That gap has drawn criticism from some healthcare observers, who argue that bureaucracy has slowed the rollout of technology that could support faster diagnosis and treatment. At the same time, the company's role in the NHS remains under review, with a break clause in the current contract due to be considered in 2027.
A Florida hospital is using Palantir to catch sepsis earlier, it's saved 866 lives so far
/sarcasm
