NUR3606 Contemporary Issues in Nursing Books

 Introduction

Medical field’s communication has always been about the conduction and influence of correct information regarding a common health condition or an abnormal prevalence in the health and disease zone. It is a common understanding that spreading of fake or incorrect information would be stagnant black mark on the ethical reputation of the field. Health professionals have started to include social media in their functionality to enhance professional networks, advancement in the understanding of the individual and the contextual factors theta will eventually influence health and benefit patients (George, Rovniak, & Kraschnewski, 2013).  One of the most prominent examples being the World Health Organization declaring the Covid-19 influenza a global pandemic in the march of 2020 and sharing guidelines via the outlets of their social media handles across all the major platforms (Cucinotta & Vanelli, 2020).

This report deals with the inclusion of social media in the field of the medicine and the risks (social, legal and technical) as well as benefits that have surfaced because of it. The discussion will begin from understanding the context of the social media, its popularity, uses and impact on the field of healthcare. Then the proceeding interference will be of the risks associated with the heavy use of social media outlets in medicine and the benefits that’s can be reaped.

Context

Social media is very powerful tool to be accessed and used in this day and age with around 4.20 billion registered users which is nearly 53 percent of the global population (Dataportal, 2021). This is a huge audience to get your point across and is assumedly temping to step into. Social media provides and instant feedback mechanism and remarks about the said information or content is followed through or not. Healthcare has been using social media has a way to connect, interact and share information such as symptoms , precautions and ways to reach out for help and assistance.

Social media platforms

Social media or social networking sites are series of websites that have user generated content characterized by the ease of use, engaging and addictive content. They are web2.0 internet-based applications (Techopedia, 2021). These websites and or mobile application allow the exchange of information, ideas, images, videos, opinions and connections efficiently through the internet. These share content that gather response, creates connections and then further felicitates the ever-evolving loop of the social media cycle. Social media like for everyone else opens the door of information, communication and exchange of ideas for both healthcare practitioners and patients. It has dramatically changed the ways of communication as the biggest healthcare announcement of 2020, was shared through a “tweet” by the World health organization declaring the Covid-19 as a global pandemic.

Table 1: Types of social media

Purpose	Platform	Example
Discussion/Opinion/ information	Blog	Tumblr
	Blog	Reddit
Opinion	Instant thoughts	Twitter
Connecting with friends and family	Photos, videos, ideas, messaging	Facebook
Sharing photos	Photos and videos	Instagram
Instant updates	Photos / videos	Snapchat
Professional networking	Connecting, networking, portfolio	LinkedIn
Sharing information, ideas	video	YouTube

Reasons to engage in social media

People have been using internet since its inception to extent their viewpoint, knowledge and or experiences for instance it was used to read and watch content and buy products or services now the inclusion is more towards the content sharing sites and social networking sites to create, modify, share and discuss the content on the internet (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011). Professional healthcare workers have started to warm up to the inclusion of social media in their networking and forming efficient communication networks with their clients and patients (Alsughayr, 2015).

These technologies are rapidly being used for self-directed prolonged learning, professional networking and communication to improve the proficiency and the effectiveness of the healthcare systems. Medical professionals are finding ways to securely  and constructively incorporate social media into health care. There has been recent governmental guidelines across countries to extent the care into the communities with communicating with the patients and their families much more efficiently and creating first responders for the preventive care. This has led to unprecedented opportunities for social networking  in healthcare as it leads yo cost effective communication between the medical professional and the out of reach public and patients.

Professional guidelines

When a medical practitioner uses social networking websites their workplace, the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (the National Law), the National Board’s code of ethics, the professional conduct (the Code of conduct) and the Guidelines for advertising regulated health services (the Advertising guidelines) apply. The NMWB (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia) has clear and instructive guidelines for nursing, health care professionals and other members to follow while using the social media during their medical practice as the situation of the interaction is same as the conversation happing in person.

These guidelines are as follows:

• It is obligatory to comply with the privacy and confidentiality code of ethics
• It is obligatory to comply with the professionalism as per your Board’s code of conduct.
• It is mandatory to maintain professional boundaries
• The communication with and about the patient, colleagues and employer should be professional and respectful.
• Presentation of any information that is deceptive, misleading and or false including advertisement are forbidden, only information that is backed by appropriate evidence can be shared (Nursingmidwiferyboard, 2019).The media is quick but the social media is quicker for the speed at which the stories of malfeasance and misdirected judgment in the medicinal field surges. Spreading of sensational false and misleading information is one if the major concerns to the healthcare practices due to social media. Apart from this there are other factors that are listed and elaborated below.

Political

The social media presence is permanent and public; everything that is posted in there is a publically issued statement and will remain there in a form or another until otherwise taken down. It gets linked with the character and identity of person posting it and can affect the reputation of the said person and their profession to which they belong.  Social media has been effective in driving public opinion through the gates. Often time’s circulation of false opinion can cause a turbulences and bias which can negatively affect the healthcare systems and policies (Hao & Gao, 2017). Social media has caused people to come together with information and mobilize in high numbers behind the cause and even cause a political change (George, Rovniak, & Kraschnewski, 2013).

Legal

There is proper code of ethics and conduct by the respective board bodies that has to be strictly followed and failure to do so can cause legal complications in the form of allegations law suit, compensatory fine, order of negligence and in extreme cases even revoking of the practitioner license (nursingmidwiferyboard, 2021). Healthcare professionals may breach the privacy of the patients by accidentally sharing a post of a photo or a video without previous consent, sometimes there can be an unintentional information leaked that can be used to identify the patient. If a patient’s privacy is violated, it can make the person feel horrible and or exposed resulting in losing their dignity and destroying the relationship between healthcare staff and patients (Hao & Gao, 2017).

Social.

Social media can cause widespread misinformation to circulate resulting in a serious threat to the emergency situation (Hao & Gao, 2017). The irksome example of this can be the huge negligence of the government of countries during the implementation of the Covid-19 safety guidelines in 2020, where people shared misinformation without the healthcare professional opinions and caused the downright surge in the number of cases leading to the present uncontrollable global pandemic.The benefits of using social media in the capacity of a health institution are usually into categories such as

Support networks.

Social media provides a whole audience for good news and better wishing people. The financial and medical aid can get through even the most neglected ones via these new mediums as a form of good wishes by people being generous (Miah, Hasan, Hasan, & Gammack, 2017). Social media can also help boost up medical drives such as blood and plasma donation, cancer research, heart checkups and diabetes checkups. There are numerous groups that people are part of while suffering from the same disease and or trauma that help build up their strength and resilience through social media. Medical professionals also form associations to share, enhance and compare their knowledge  (Naslund, Aschbrenner, Marsch, & Bartels, 2016).

 Professional nurses

Professional nurses can also form groups to learn, improvise, adapt and overcome their professional as well as personal setbacks and engage with their patients to keep a tab on their progress. Nurses can get on with their enrichment of knowledge through various courses available on the internet through the networking and connections (Pershad, Hangge, Albadawi, & Oklu, 2018).

Improving patient outcomes

Social media has been used the professional spread general information like guidance and tips on keeping the blood pressure in control, scheduled reminders for doctors’ appointments, posts and posters about the available important vaccines and seasonal medicines and sometimes even the links for important medical research.  The healthcare institutions can also share archives of healthy recipes, podcasts and connect with their clients and patients (De Martino, et al., 2017).

Communication

Health institutions work on a certain way to efficiently communicate through the social media as a medium to share information like: updates on the technological advancements in healthcare, introduction of new medical professionals on social networks, respond to the questions asked by the general public, deliver the generic pre- and post-surgical care information and offering any updates if their patients need. Social media is also intensively used in to communicate in the times of crisis (Lim, 2016).

Conclusion

To conclude social media is a vast platform with almost 53% of the global population as registered users. This gives an edge to the communication and regulations-based field such as healthcare to include it in their working and try get out the best from it. Social media like for everyone else opens the door of information, communication and exchange of ideas for both healthcare practitioners and patients. It has dramatically changed the ways of communication as the biggest news of 2020, was shared through a “tweet” by the World health organization declaring the Covid-19 as a global pandemic. When vigilantly used, social media can provide the numerous benefits like clinical education, professional networking, and patients’ health promotion. However, when imprudently used social media can cause violation of patients’ confidentiality and privacy and can lead to intimidating consequences.

References

Alsughayr, A. R. (2015). Social media in healthcare: Uses, risks, and barriers. Saudi Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences, 3(2), 105.

Cucinotta , D., & Vanelli, M. (2020). WHO Declares COVID-19 a Pandemic. Acta Biomed, 91(1), 157–160. doi:10.23750/abm.v91i1.9397

Dataportal. (2021). GLOBAL SOCIAL MEDIA STATS. Retrieved from Dataportal.com: https://datareportal.com/social-media-users

De Martino, I., D’Apolito, R., McLawhorn, A. S., Fehring, K. A., Sculco, P. K., & Gasparini, G. (2017). Social media for patients: benefits and drawbacks. Current reviews in musculoskeletal medicine, 10(1), 141-145.

George, D., Rovniak, L., & Kraschnewski, J. (2013). Dangers and Opportunities for Social Media in Medicine. Clinical Obstetrics & Gynecology, 56(3), 453-462. doi:10.1097/grf.0b013e318297dc38

Hao, J., & Gao, B. (2017). Advantages and Disadvantages for Nurses of Using Social Media. Jouranl Of Primary Healthcare and General Practice.

Kietzmann, J. H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I. P., & Silvestre, B. S. (2011). Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business Horizons, 54(3), 241–251. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2011.01.005

Lim, W. M. (2016). Social media in medical and health care: opportunities and challenges. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 34(7), 964–976. doi:10.1108/mip-06-2015-0120 

Miah, S. J., Hasan, N., Hasan, R., & Gammack, J. (2017). Healthcare support for underserved communities using a mobile social media platform. nformation Systems, 66, 1-12.

Naslund, J., Aschbrenner, K., Marsch, L., & Bartels, S. (2016). The future of mental health care: Peer-to-peer support and social media. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, 25(2), 113-122. doi:10.1017/S2045796015001067

Nursingmidwiferyboard. (2019, November ). Social media: How to meet your obligations under the National Law. Retrieved from https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements: https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements/Codes-Guidelines/Social-media-guidance.aspx

nursingmidwiferyboard. (2021). codes-guidelines-statements. Retrieved from www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au: https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/codes-guidelines-statements/codes-guidelines.aspx

Pershad, Y., Hangge, P., Albadawi, H., & Oklu, R. (2018). Social Medicine: Twitter in Healthcare. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 7(6), 121. doi:10.3390/jcm7060121

Techopedia. (2021, feburary 22). "What is Web 1.0? - Definition from Techopedia". Retrieved April 16, 2021, from Techopedia.com. : https://www.techopedia.com/definition/27960/web-10...

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