Essay On Social Media In Nursing

Communication has been permanently changed by social media. A wide conceptual definition of social media, as cited in Ressler & Glazer (2010), is “The online and mobile accessible services that enable individuals to connect, collaborate, and share with others in real time.” Social media has an obvious influence on informal communication style and represents both possibility and liability for healthcare institutions. As cited in Bernhardt, Alber, & Gold (2014), “Social media provide healthcare professionals with tools to share information, to debate health care policy and practice issues, to promote health behaviors, to engage with the public, and to educate and interact with patients, caregivers, students, and colleagues.” It also presents challenges, including risks to information accuracy, organizational reputation, and individual privacy. Social media can be a very helpful in communicating among nurses and other healthcare providers while creating professional connections, and sharing experiences, but guidelines for appropriate use by healthcare providers are essential. Whether or not certain healthcare organization decides to use social media as a communications tool - social media policy still need to be implemented. Policies help establish an organization 's rules and expectations around social media.

There are many public service announcements, advertisements, or paid social marketing that target the health field. Methods that are used in other industries that can be use in hospitals is the emergence of new technology. Technology that offer easier communication to health providers and their patient. It will also enable them to learn skills that are needed in their daily lives or future jobs. Social media has also taken a huge toll on hospitals and health systems. Generally, social media is used to communicate things outside of the work field. Today, it is use to communicate messages about current and new issues. Overall, the methods of media is one of the innovation that helps to improve communication in the health care field. It allows easy understanding through the healthcare providers and its

This paper examines the public perception of nurses and how social media can be both a detriment and a benefit to the career field.

While using social media can be valuable to doctors and nurses, inappropriate use of these tools can be devastating to a health professional career. Here are some examples

“Increasingly students, faculty, and programs are confronted with the consequences of misuse, which may include breached patient confidentiality, possible exposure to lawsuits by patients or others who are entitled to confidentiality, boundary issues in professional relationships, and impairment of program integrity. For students, this can also involve academic or disciplinary actions, including clinical course failure and program dismissal” (Westrick, 2016). Many nursing student like myself are unaware of our professional responsibilities when using social media. This greatly affects nurse-patient relationships, and trust of other staff members, and also the institution us nursing students represent. “Baker (2013) points out that nurses must find a balance between taking advantage of the benefits social media use offers for professional engagement and guarding against the risk for violating professional boundaries. Those who could be harmed by boundary violations include patients and their family members, as well as the nurse’s employer and coworkers” (Westrick, 2016). The American Nurses Association Code of Ethics is a very well established framework for guiding nurses and nursing student. The Code of Ethics, which I just learned in my ethical/legal issues class does say that nurses and nursing professional must be mindful of postings, images, and recordings that breach confidentiality and privacy. Confidentiality standards can be breached by sharing private information (often inadvertently), even when the patient’s name or other identifying information is not revealed. Extreme caution needs to be exercised when discussing any patient-related experience or information on social media

Health information communication technology (HICT) is the new standard in healthcare when it comes to enhanced patient care and education. According to Elsevier Journal (2013), “Searching the World Wide Web for healthcare information is second only to searching for sites related to sex, while multiple forms of social media, now increasingly mobile, are challenging the limits of healthcare providers’ professionalism” (Reis et. al., 2013). This shows an increasing prevalence in the use of HICTs in both healthcare and the general population. Discussing the use of HICTs will further education about how beneficial they are to healthcare systems. This paper will outline the importance of HICTS in healthcare and the nurse’s role in the use of HICTs

For many, social media is how to stay connected with what is going on in the world, but for nursing students this craze can be quite dangerous (Peck, 2014). Anything that is posted online can be seen, reported, and cause someone’s life to change in an instant. For example, if a student nurse connects with one of their clients on social media, this client has access to the student’s personal life. Not only is the student crossing the boundary of the therapeutic nurse-client relationship, but he or she is not showcasing a professional image and may be putting him or herself at risk (International Nurse Regulator Collaborative, 2014). Other scenarios involving unsuitable use of social media include complaining about a client or co-worker, posting inappropriate photos, etc. (See Appendix) (College of Nurses of Ontario, 2013). Moreover, it is important for all nurses, especially students to learn the importance of navigating social media in a way that keeps their professional and private life

For workplaces social media can be productive and unproductive. Social media in medical workplaces can be productive by advertising or having some communication skills that will save some time. Social media in medical workplaces can be unproductive by doctors pausing at work, or during surgery, to tweet what they are doing causing more risks or the workers getting temptations to go onto personal accounts on the social networks and getting distracted with their friends for a several minutes.

Technology has impacted my nursing profession. As a new generation nurse, technology used in healthcare comes easy to me compared to older generation nurses. I have encountered older generation nurses who have a hard time to use things online and are sometimes stubborn to learn about these advance technology forming in healthcare. I have utilized my email to communicate with my manager and my coworkers. We also use technology such as e-learnings, which are modules online to help us learn about new things to improve our nursing skills. Our hospital also utilizes “text page”, which we notify the doctor about information concerning about our patients. As Piscotty, Kalisch and Gracey-Thomas (2015) explain “Reducing the occurrence of missed nursing

The article discussed about the misuse of social media and electronic communication, which leads to get dismissal in the profession of health care field.

Social media has grown significantly in the last decade, and has had huge impact on the nursing profession. We nurses rely on it, we are constantly using it to look up information, or using it to communicate with one another. Big risk associated with the use of social media is when a nurse, or student nurses, post unprofessional content, this can damage a professional image (Ventola, C, 2014). Someone’s perception may come from social media, such as the content they put on a social media site, such as photos or posts (Ventola, C, 2014). Certain behaviors could be misinterpreted, as unprofessional and violate patient privacy. Patients can also get poor quality information about their disease process, when using social media due to the fact that the information can be unreferenced, or incomplete (Ventola, C, 2014). These are some down falls of the use social media but there is

According to Balestra, “Although social media offers many benefits, inappropriate use can create legal problems for nurses, including job termination, malpractice claims, and disciplinary action from boards of nursing (BON), which could negatively impact their nursing license and career.” (2018). Obviously, these problems have never been possible in the past due to the nonexistence of the internet and social media. As a licensed professional of modern times, nurses have to be very careful with what they share online, especially when it comes to confidential patient information. Balestra says, “Even when posted with the best intentions, such as trying to get professional advice from colleagues about patient care, these posts are discoverable and can lead to legal problems, with potential fines and jail time for HIPAA violations, termination or other discipline from your employer...”

In addition, the nurses can participate profitably in the medical discussions regardless of the time zones and geographic locations. Like the people in other professions, a professional online presence is a must for the nursing. However, the nurses need to proceed cautiously with an eye over the content they upload and consider the potential negative consequences of the participation in the social media ("White Paper: A Nurse’s Guide to the Use of Social Media",

Social media has been taking over and on the rise for the past few years now. Everyone these days has some kind of social communication that’s online and the number of users are escalating on a daily basis. Social media has become such a popular yet dangerous way of communicating through technology. Some people can be naïve to the fact that everyone can see what they post regardless of their privacy settings. People need to keep that in mind especially when working in an industry where everything has to be kept confidential. From the article “Guidelines for Using Electronic and Social Media: The Regulatory Perspective”, it read “Social media is not merely a driving force in everyday life, but one that fits seamlessly into how communication is transmitted” (Spector, N., Kappel, D., 2012). Some people get too involved with the internet and social media and end up abusing its power. When it comes to the health care field like nursing, everything nurses work around should be kept private and confidential to keep their patients information safe. If you’re proud of your patient, tell them. There’s no need to post every thought that comes to mind on social media. Nurses must keep a professional boundary and know not to mix business with pleasure because it can end up getting them in trouble. Their work life and personal life should be kept separate from each other and should be on a “need to

At the same time, health care organizations find challenges in adopting social media. Hospital and medical practices are risk adverse and generally cautious about new technology trends without clear value. There are questions about whether social media use by hospital employees is a waste of time, or even worse, presents risks of violating HIPAA or leaking proprietary information. Hospital IT departments are concerned about security risks, such as the use of tinyurl.com, which can mask malicious Web sites. Privacy concerns, particularly the vulnerability of social media accounts, are also cited as a reason to avoid social media. (John Sharp 2010).