Every May, the public turns its attention to nurses. National Nurses Month rolls around with hashtags, appreciation posts, and the occasional free coffee in hospital breakrooms. It’s a gesture of gratitude — and it’s often genuine — but it’s also far from enough.
This year, May also marks Mental Health Awareness Month. That timing feels especially poignant. Because while we talk about honoring nurses, we rarely ask how they’re really doing — mentally, emotionally, physically. We forget that behind the competence and compassion is a human being who is, more often than not, overwhelmed.
When we talk to nurses, we don’t hear complaints. We hear stories. A nurse on her third back-to-back 12-hour shift, worried she might miss something because she’s barely slept. Another who skips lunch to manually check on vitals one more time — not because she doesn’t trust the system, but because she’s seen too much to risk it. Another who leaves the unit only to cry in the car before going home.
This is what burnout looks like in real time. It’s not just about being tired — it’s about feeling stretched so thin you start to question whether you can keep showing up. And yet, nurses do show up. Every single day. Not because they’re superhuman, but because they care. And we’ve taken that for granted for too long.
Burnout is now affecting over 56% of nurses in the United States, according to a 2025 workforce study1. And it’s not just emotional strain. The nation is grappling with a growing shortage of qualified nurses, with more than 350,000 positions unfilled2. The weight of that gap lands on the shoulders of those still clocking in — day after day, patient after patient.
And perhaps most troubling: one in four nurse sick days is now attributed to stress-related mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, or emotional exhaustion3.
It’s easy to use words like “resilience.” But what nurses need right now isn’t more praise for being strong. What they need is relief. Support. Smarter systems that reduce the emotional and physical toll of caregiving.
At Aulisa, we’ve been asking ourselves: What role can technology play in creating that relief? How do we help nurses feel less alone in their decision-making? How can we reduce false alarms, automate routine checks, and give providers time back — not to do more, but to rest, to connect, to care more deeply?
We know tech isn’t the entire solution. But it can be a powerful part of it — when it’s built with empathy and designed with input from those on the front lines.
This May, our message is simple: Nurses are not okay, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone. Instead of applause, let’s give them tools that work. Instead of asking for more resilience, let’s build systems that don’t require it as a survival skill.
Because when we care for our caregivers, they can care better for all of us.
References:
- Davis & Elkins College (2025). The Impact of the Nursing Shortage on Careers: Challenges and Solutions. Retrieved from dewv.edu
- Nightingale College (2024). Nursing Shortage by State. Retrieved from nightingale.edu
- The Times UK (2024). A Quarter of Nurses’ Sick Days Are Due to Poor Mental Health. Retrieved from thetimes.co.uk