Social Media Within The Heath Care System

While advancements in technology have positively impacted the nursing field, it has also created huge concerns with patient privacy and sharing of protected health information leading to detrimental effects to patients and their families. Indeed, technology is changing the face of healthcare with positive innovations to reduce medication errors and documentation errors. However, technology at our fingertips has created immense concerns with sharing of protected health information of patients via social media, email and other means of communication via technology. This paper addresses why I feel the advancement of technology has numerous deficits that need more research and implementation of new laws and policies to safeguard the

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.

In the world today, smartphones are becoming the “norm”, with basic phones becoming nearly obsolete in recent years. Pairing the overwhelming presence of social media with the rise in usage of smartphones brings to light an entirely new set of problems and challenges regarding patient privacy. According to a 2010 study conducted regarding various boards of nursing, 67% of executive officers surveyed reported receiving complaints about nurses misusing social media (Spector & Kappel,

Social Media in Nursing and The Effect it has on Jobs, Facilities and Nursing Students

Edie Brous, RN, wrote an article on how the internet, social media and other new technologies have advanced. The use of social media has taken the free speech amendment to another level against those who don’t understand the restrictions. Nurses share ideas that they believed can be helpful when they post things but they must understand the legal risks of misusing. It’s becoming so broad that now different healthcare and professional organizations use it to communicate with their patients. There is a understanding to free speech limitation Brous notes:

In the present culture of the United States, social media has had a major impact in American society. It has a profound influence and intertwined itself in almost every aspect of the average American’s life. It ranges from providing updates of location of a person(s), events, and sharing personal moments. Even different industries are utilizing social media as a platform for communication, information, and sales mediums. One industry, the health care field has seen a rise in the utilization of social media. For instance, an emerging population of physicians are using social media apps such as Snap Chat, Facebook, and YouTube to educate, display surgical, and medical procedures while being performed. In contrast, as there are positive aspects of utilizing social media, a negative trait of social media is invading and exposing individual’s privacy. As of recent, a New York licensed nurse had to surrender her nursing license and sentenced to 3 years of probation for “moral unfitness in the practice (Bowerman, 2016).” She took photos with her phone of two unconscious male patient’s genitalia and shared them with coworkers. This has become an increasing issue and as the utilization of social media in healthcare is increasing, many ethical issues are developing. For instance, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was passed for the adoption of a national standard for electronic health care transactions and code sets, unique health identifiers,

The rapid development of technology throughout modern society has initiated the widespread use of social networking. Social networking plays a positive role in healthcare when educating, communicating, or advertising. However, poor judgments have the power to turn this positive into negative and damage professional reputations. Griffith (2014) stresses the importance of understanding that protected health information is not a matter of open secrets. Whether a lawyer, doctor, nurse, or a secretary, it is important to avoid conditions that may influence the health and security of patients or clients, as well as their own professional reputation (Aylott, 2011). The Purpose of this paper is to explore the appropriate use of cell phones and social networking in healthcare and the importance of understanding the ethical boundaries between professional uses opposed to personal use.

Employees within healthcare and anyone who has been a mature patient in recent years have been duly informed of the Health Insurance Privacy and Portability Act (HIPPA), but even more people are more intimately familiar with the social networking site Facebook. Prior to researching the legal and ethical boundaries at it pertains to patient confidentiality in nursing school, many of us thought little of the HIPPA concept and how it applies to each of us as individuals. We can announce to the world on Facebook that I have a lump, please go get a mammogram! We can whine on for ages about our children’s medical problems. We make announcements and call for prayers for our spouses and parents who are ill. We share with our friends and family,

On December 26, 2017 an article made by Kaiser Health News was published on Newsela about how Social Media could have mental health benefits for people who use it. One day Anna, (Who asked to be Identified by a different name) broke up with her boyfriend at 1:30 a.m.. It was too late to call her therapist and too late to stop by her friend's house. She turned to Social Media to help her and asked  if there was anybody who she could call until she felt better. Almost immediately, she got support from her friends and they helped her feel better.

Another drawback of smartphone and social media use in healthcare is the negative repercussions of breach of patient confidentiality. To follow with HIPAA Privacy Rule, clinical vignettes posted via web-based media concerning patients must have all individual perceiving information and any uncovering references removed. This “de-identification” should be possible by changing or disposing of key patient components (e.g., names, insurance or Social Security numbers, date of birth, and photos), by keeping up a vital separation from the portrayal of uncommon therapeutic issues, and by excluding specific time ranges or territories without the patient's consent. In any case, there have been numerous coincidental breaches of HIPAA Privacy Rule involving online networking. A study of medical blogs composed by HCPs found that individual patients were portrayed in 42% of the 271 samples studied. These samples, 17% were found to sufficiently incorporate data for patients to distinguish themselves or their providers, and three included conspicuous photos of the patients (Ventola,

I agree with you that social media plays a big role in our lives. People use Instagram, twitter, snapchat, and Facebook to post pictures or tweets. In the hospital this prohibited. When you take a picture of the patient as Sabina gives the example of the patient with cancer you are being unethical because you aren’t respecting the patient’s privacy thus hurting the patient and nurse relationship. The patient has faith that the nurse is there to help the patient and not cause harm, but by putting them on social media their privacy is being shared with everyone in social media. According to the nursing, “6 tips to avoid problems: remember that standards of professionalism are the same online as in any other circumstance, do not share or post information or photos gained through the nurse-patient relationship, maintain professional boundaries in the use of electronic media. Online contact with patients blurs this boundary, do not make disparaging remarks about patients, employers, or co-workers, even if they are not identified, do not take photos or videos of patients on personal devices, including cell phones, and promptly report a breach of confidentiality or privacy” (www.nursingworld.org).

Nancy Spector, whom holds a PhD, RN titles from the University of Wisconsin, distinguishes that most patient privacy violations are due to nurses not taking the time to think before posting and inadvertently putting the patient’s info out for persons not admitted to see it. Spector states “The quick and efficient technology enabling use of social media reduces not only the time it takes to post, but also the time to consider whether the post is appropriate and what ramifications may come from posting inappropriate content.” Nurses should be able to use social media to help further their relationships with patients and co-workers, with the healthy understanding of how to do so wisely.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) forces individuals and organization to realize that a patient’s data or the Patient Health information (PHI) is confidential. In her article, Sharpe, (2017), states “Examples of social media violations include posting verbal gossip about a patient (even if the name is not disclosed), sharing photographs or any form of PHI without written consent from the patient or guardian, mistakenly believing posts that are deleted can’t exist in cyberspace and sharing seemingly innocent pictures that have health-care information visible”.

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).

Background: Two staff are seen carrying the old woman and throwing her onto her bed. (YouTube) A nursing home along Braddell Road has been suspended from admitting new patients with effect from 12 April after a patient was reported to have been mistreated. The incident at Nightingale Nursing Home came to light after a video of a patient being mistreated was sent to local broadcaster Mediacorp. The footage was shot by a hidden camera on a patient's bedside. In the video, an elderly woman patient is seen sitting stark naked beside a bed with the room ceiling fans on. She is then picked up by two hospital staff and thrown onto a bed, before a staff is shown slapping her on her mouth when she wailed in pain. Reports say the patient has been a resident there for four years and is suffering from stroke. The Ministry of Health (MOH) said it has suspended the nursing home from admitting new patients from 12 April until further notice. The nursing home has also disciplined the staff involved and put in place additional measures such as ward rounds by senior staff, regular meetings with patients and their family members, and management check on staff conduct and patients In a statement to Yahoo! Singapore, a MOH spokesperson said, investigations into the video recording show "significant lapses in the care standards" to the patient in question. "This should not have happened. There should have been tighter supervision of staff rendering care to vulnerable patients. Patient's dignity