The Effects Of Social Media On Health Care

Punjani, N. S., Bhanji, S. M., & Meghani, S. T. (2015). Implication of Social Media in Health Care Practice. International Journal Of Nursing Education, 7(2), 128-131 4p. doi:10.5958/0974-9357.2015.00089.6

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.

We Can But Dare We: A Look into the Use of Social Media in Healthcare

Social media in hospitals can affect the patient as well as the nurse and the nursing student. Westrick states: “Nurses must find a balance between taking advantage of the benefits social media use

The objective of this study is to examine the importance of not sharing patient information through social media. According to the work of Adler (2011) many physicians are violating HIPAA and do not know it. Dimick (2010) writes that nurses at the Fargo, ND-based healthcare system in 2008 were using Facebook to "provide unauthorized shift change updates to their co-workers. What once would have been a conversation became an update on their personal Facebook pages. It was a convenient tool, because the nurses had "friended" each other through Facebook and thus could quickly read what each other wrote on their pages. They did not use patient names, but they did post enough specifics about patients so that the incoming nurses could prepare for their shift. The problem was that everyone else "friended" to their Facebook pages could also read the information." (p.1) The use of social media to talk about work "sharing sensitive patient or proprietary business information that same easy use and powerful reach broadcasts guarded information to large numbers of people." (Dimick, 2010, p.1) Release of information that is sensitive over social media can result in great harm to the reputation of an organization, violations of HIPAWA and ultimately result in "breach notifications and hefty fines." (Dimick, 2010, p.2) Dimick writes that Kaiser Permanente published "an organization-wide social media policy that explains appropriate staff

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

With the advancement of modern technology, social media is increasingly finding use in healthcare delivery and management. Health professionals including doctors, nurses and therapists have adopted social media to communicate with their patients and for health sensitization. Social media can benefit healthcare delivery in a variety of ways including fostering professional connections, patient and community education and promoting communication with patients and families. On the other hand, use of social media in healthcare exposes patients’ data to breaches and leakages creating confidentiality issues. Misuse of patient data results in serious career penalties for negligent medical professionals. Protocols have been established to oversee the use of social medial by health practitioners. The paper seeks to explore the recognized rules that regulate the use of social media, and its risks and benefits. Health professionals should utilize benefits of social media while adhering to confidentiality, privacy, and ethical guidelines for private or professional communications with respect to patient data.

Every day, more than a billion people worldwide use social networks. This habit has also invaded the workplaces and some research has established that four out of five employees use social networks for private purposes during working hours. Surprisingly, although this type of distraction can potentially harm the welfare of the organizations, no studies of this relationship have been made so far. In recent years, the phenomenon of social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, is booming and occupies more space in the lives of individuals. So much so that interactions with these media are increasingly in the workplace, employers seeing the cause is often unproductive. Indeed, if a physician’s spends a lot of time surfing the Internet for personal

The increase of social media within the heath care system has benefited many patients but also has violated their privacy rights. This article tells a heartbreaking story of how workers across the nation are taking snapchats of their patients in the nursing home in a dehumanizing and violating way. Some cases have led to charges but most have not sadly. Posting photos of patients without their permission may violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act but some cases still are not brought to justice. There are many cases that have videos and pictures of the patients during vulnerable times and of them exposed or nude. Also, some for the videos found are of the workers playing tricks on them or of the patient singing or doing some thing funny. Sadly, abuse is not new to nursing homes but this form is. The responses of the family members of the victims have been field with frustration and sadness but they hope that the facilities will take this very seriously. Unfortunately, nursing homes rarely find the social media postings themselves and are found out by staff members or community members and it is difficult to tell if the incidents are increasing or decreasing. These situations bring into question of cell phone use on the job and how to prevent or regulate that.

McNab, C. (2009). What social media offers to health professionals and citizens. Bulletin of the World Health Organization. Retrieved from http://Bulletin of the World Health Organization

The preceptor that I am with does not use social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other Internet related sources in patient communication or anything that is related to their patients’ condition and might breach their privacy and confidentiality. Although the physician and NP mentioned that the clinic portal allows their patients to access their information, which they implemented fairly recent. However, again they expressed mixed feeling about it and possible violation of HIPAA. They agreed that it is the patient right to know everything about their condition but since they access it through the Internet there is no guarantee that is completely safe and cannot be accessed or hacked by someone else. Until this point the practice

As the author continue to narrate the people story with the social media she talked about some people who are healthcare pursuer also using online internet to search for medical information and health issues. Also, she said nurses has an ethical duty to accommodate the limitation of using social media in such a way that protect people self-esteem.

It is much easier in todays society for one to search various health organizations such as the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) and the Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) on Facebook or other social media outlets and learn about upcoming events, recent developments, etc. Although the collaboration has many positive aspects, there are always going to be a few negative to accompany them, such as someone posting content that may be considered abusive. Additionally, this prevalence of social media and informatics has proven to be a successful partnership in one study that looked at a group of women who were scheduled for an abdominal mammography. Each woman had access to an online forum, which provided her with information related to the mammography. This access to the forum was found to help decrease overall anxiety levels the women might have been feeling (Fernandez-Luque & Staccini,

Dr Lynette Cusack RN, from the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, positions social media as; “Individuals and organisations are embracing user-generated content, such as social networking, personal websites, discussion forums and message boards, blogs and micro blogs.” (Cusack, 2015).

“Social media have invaded health care from at least three fronts: innovative startups, patient communities and medical centers” (John Sharp 2010). The Social Media arena helps the health care system for their planning strategy and their marketing. However, their use is very controversial. There is a discussion about the use of social media in the healthcare settings due to its vulnerability. Even though social media is important for the healthcare development, the security issues will remain big concerns for the healthcare system.