Nurses and the Use of Social Media in Work Place

Nurses and the Use of Social Media in Work Place

Introduction

Modern technologies, particularly social media, have become an unavoidable part of daily lives. Social media has provided the public with applications with fast and remote features that have changed the dimensions of sharing and accessing information. The platforms serve as an essential link that connects people from all races’ tribes and beliefs. It ensures that people stay connected, and their jobs are performed efficiently. The powerful connections could hardly be imagined 20 years ago.

Interestingly, the nursing profession has also adopted these technological tools to improve career objectives and workplace performance. Health experts also use the same media to present their personal and professional issues. Nevertheless, the use of the technologies must be regulated to protect and serve the needs of the patient and the practitioner, just like in the old days. Furthermore, Patient confidentiality is essential to the law and protects the privacy of patients and makes sure that the guidelines that separate professional life and personal life are guided. In the context of the provided scenario, this essay offers the pros and cons of social media in the workplace. It will explain the personal needs and professional needs of using social media in the health practice and how the two differ and serve to the wellbeing of t both practice needs and individual needs.

Several regulations balance social media in the nursing atmosphere. Though HIPAA was formulated several years before the rise of social media, there are several; laws in the HIPPA that would help nurses work professionally and comfortably (Cronquist& Spector, 2011). There are HIPAA laws and guidelines that apply to Internet-based life use by medicinal services associations and their workers. Therapeutic services associations should accordingly actualize a HIPAA web-based life arrangement to diminish the danger of security violations. There are numerous advantages to be picked up from utilizing web-based life. Internet-based life channels permit human services associations to collaborate with patients and get them progressively engaged with their social insurance. Social insurance associations can rapidly and effectively impart important messages or give data about new administrations. Medicinal services suppliers can draw in new patients using Internet-based life sites (Levati 2014). Be that as it may, there is likewise vast potential for HIPAA Rules and patient security to be disregarded via web-based networking media systems. So by what means can medicinal services associations and their representatives utilize online life without abusing HIPAA Rules.

The HIPAA Privacy Rule restricts the utilization of private health information via web-based networking media systems. That incorporates any content about explicit patients just as pictures or recordings that could bring about a patient being recognized. Private wellbeing data must be remembered for Internet-based life posts if a patient has given their consent, recorded as a hard copy, to permit their private wellbeing data to be utilized for a reason explicitly referenced in the assent form. Social media channels can be used for posting wellbeing tips, subtleties of occasions, new medicinal research, profiles of staff, and for advertising messages, gave no PHI is remembered for the posts (WangWang, Zhang, & Jiang 2019). Thus the nurse, by taking a photo with the celebrity, violated the first law of HIPAA. They exposed the personal information of a patient by taking a picture that revealed their health status at the time and disclosed their health details. However, from the own perspective, the nurse was not wrong for taking their photo. The nurses have the right to use social media for personal purposes, but taking the patient’s personal information violated the policy of patient confidentiality.

Online life can profit social insurance in an assortment of ways, including encouraging proficient associations, advancing available correspondence with patients and relatives, and instructing and illuminating buyers and human services experts. Online networking gives nurture an approach to communicate their sentiments, and reflector look for help from companions, associates, and peers or anybody on the Internet (Jarden, Sandham, Siegert, & Koziol‐McLain 2019). Journaling and reasonable practice are perceived as viable instruments in nursing practice, and the Internet gives elective media to attendants to participate in these supportive exercises. Without a feeling of alert, be that as it may, these justifiable needs and potential advantages may bring about the medical caretaker revealing an excessive amount of data and disregarding understanding protection and privacy. Medicinal services associations that use electronic and web-based life ordinarily have approaches administering representative utilization of such media in the work environment. Parts of these arrangements regularly address individual usage of boss PCs and gear, individualized computing during work hours, and the kinds of sites that can be gotten to from boss PCs. Human services associations additionally keep up cautious control of sites kept up by or related with the association, constraining what might be presented on the site and by whom (Piscotty, Voepel-Lewis, Lee, Annis-Emeott, Lee, & Kalisch, 2013). The business’ strategies, be that as it may, commonly don’t address the medical caretaker’s utilization of web-based life to examine working environment issues outside of work on home PCs, by and by possessed telephones and other handheld electronic gadgets. It is right now the medical caretaker may confront possibly positive ramifications for the improper utilization of web-based social networking.

In the scenario, the night nurse violated HIPAA confidentiality laws by taking a photo of the patient and sharing it with a friend. The act was against the ethics of the nursing practice that stipulates that the health records of any patient should be kept confidential. However, it is not the same nurse who sold out the information to outsiders; thus, it means that the nurses in the whole facility were not aware of the nursing ethics regarding exposing a patient’s health. Both the nurse who presented the information and the one who took the photos violated the HIPAA laws concerning the use of social media (Tuckett & Turner, 2016).  Thus it means the nurses were not educated on the use of social media on personal and professional purposes. In order to avoid the risks involved in the use of social media use in healthcare departments, nurses should be taught on how to comply with HIPAA laws.  Such teachings include the use of social media for both professional and personal purposes.  The program should consist of annual training on the uses social media applications personally and professionally according to HIPAA laws. The program should focus on the advantages and disadvantages of using social media, both professionally and personally, in the workplace.  Also, employees should be taught about the consequences of misusing social media in the workplace as stipulated by HIPAA,

end, loss of permit, and criminal punishments (Jarden, Sandham, Siegert, & Koziol‐McLain 2019). Guarantee your consistency division endorses every single new utilization of online life locales. Audit and update your approaches via web-based networking media yearly. Create strategies and systems on the use of web-based life for showcasing, including institutionalizing how advertising happens via web-based networking media accounts.

Conclusion

The use of social media is both beneficial and detrimental to nursing practice. One of the advantages is that it helps nurse access and receives patient information quickly. The disadvantage is that the patient’s confidential information could be exposed. Thus, nurses should be educated on the HIPAA laws that guide patient information sharing and transfer. However, nurses should be aware that personal use of social media is different from workplace purpose use of social media. To achieve personal and professional balance, nurses should be educated on the use of social media to benefit the workplace and the rules that govern the abuse of social media use in the workplace.

References

Cronquist, R., & Spector, N. (2011). Nurses and social media: Regulatory concerns and guidelines. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 2(3), 37-40.

Jarden, R. J., Sandham, M., Siegert, R. J., & Koziol‐McLain, J. (2019). Strengthening workplace wellbeing: perceptions of intensive care nurses. Nursing in critical care, 24(1), 15-23.

Levati, S. (2014). Professional conduct among registered nurses in the use of online social networking sites. Journal of advanced nursing, 70(10), 2284-2292.

Piscotty, R., Voepel-Lewis, T., Lee, S. H., Annis-Emeott, A., Lee, E., & Kalisch, B. (2013). To tweet or not to tweet? Nurses, social media, and patient care. Nursing Management, 44(5), 52-53.

Tuckett, A., & Turner, C. (2016). Do you use social media? A study of new nursing and midwifery graduates’ uptake of social media. International journal of nursing practice, 22(2), 197-204.

Wang, Z., Wang, S., Zhang, Y., & Jiang, X. (2019). Social media usage and online professionalism among registered nurses: A cross-sectional survey. International journal of nursing studies, 98, 19-26.