May 12th marked International Nurses Day, an opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the invaluable contribution that nurses make to our lives. Healthcare is shifting towards a multidisciplinary approach, and making up more than half of the workforce, we are vital team members providing comprehensive, compassionate, and coordinated care to improve patient outcomes.

The critical role of the nurse has never been more apparent than it was over the past 18 months. Our frontline nurses worked tirelessly and selflessly to deliver exceptional care in the face of adversity, and truly were at the centre of our Emirate’s exemplary pandemic response.

Typically spending more time with patients that other team members, we act as a valuable line of communication between patients and the wider multidisciplinary medical team. Technology like Malaffi, providing access to patient’s important medical information, which can be shared between team members, enhances the role of the nurse as an integral part of the care team and allows us to collectively provide more efficient and safer care.

The theme of International Nurses Day 2021 is ‘A voice to lead - A vision for future healthcare’, and this couldn’t be more appropriate within our Emirate. We have witnessed a transformation of the way healthcare is delivered in recent years. As Malaffi offers tools such as population risk management, which will change the way we tackle things like chronic disease and pandemics in the future, supported by the incredible work our nurses do day-to-day, we really are in safe hands.

Aysha Ali Al Mahri
Group Chief Nursing Officer of SEHA
President of the Emirates Nursing Association