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Social media is defined as the online mobile tools that can be easily accessed and used to share information, experiences, opinions, audio, videos and images. This also includes the websites and facilitates social networking. There are many common sources of social media available for everyone. These sources or platforms are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, and content sharing websites, Instagram, YouTube, wikis, and many more. For the contemporary healthcare setting and healthcare professionals, many social media tools are available. The social media tools can facilitate enhancement of professional education and network, patient care, organizational promotion, and public healthcare programs.
However, social media can also pose risk to patient and healthcare professionals, in relation to poor healthcare information, breaching patient safety, damaging professional image, legal issues regarding licensing and violation of personal–professional boundaries. To prevent the risk of social media in healthcare services, e Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) has presented a social media policy.
What is Social Media?
The concept and classification of social media is continuously growing. The use and access to social media is also increasing day by day. Social media is very broad term, which mainly refers to a tool that allow communities and individuals to communicate and gather various information through Internet (Bernhardt, Alber, and Gold 2014). Social media allow the users to share information, audios, videos, blogs, micro-blogs, content sites, personal messages, images and other things in order to contact or work together with other users immediately. This tool is also known as social networking and “Web 2.0” (Bernhardt, Alber, and Gold 2014).
There are many different features are offered by the social networking sites that allow users to use them and serve different purposes. Social media is the place with myriad of information regarding different aspects of life. People can receive and share any information they want. Some of the sources of social media or social media stages are:
It has been noticed that general public has increased their participation in social media over the last few years. The use of social media is common across the individuals of every age, every profession and every professional (Ventola 2014). In the year 2012 the users of Facebook increased to one billion people all over the world. Billions of people are using Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Social media is not just used to share images, videos or audios, but it also works as a platform to share political views, events and societal trends (Ventola 2014).
Thus, social media is a very important source of the healthcare professionals as well, as it allows them to share information regarding various diseases, suggesting treatments and interventions; and different kind of medical information can also be received. Social media provide a great tool to the healthcare professionals to share information and data, “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” (Bernhardt, Alber, and Gold 2014). The utilization of social media can be done to potentially improve the health outcomes, personal awareness through discoveries and news, developing professional network, motivating patients, and providing essential health information to the members of the community (Bernhardt, Alber, and Gold 2014).
There are many online communities available for the nursing professionals and physicians that can be joined, through which different information, news articles, research article, medical journals, and case studies and discuss various other profession related issues with experts (Bernhardt, Alber, and Gold 2014). Professionals can also share their cases and ideas; can also discuss the challenges related to nursing practice. Professional can also disseminate their research, engage in the health advocacy and market their practices (Bernhardt, Alber, and Gold 2014). The nurse patient relationship can be improved by social media. Nurses can share the relevant information and nursing plans with patients through personal messaging. They can directly communicate with the patient and expand healthcare (Barry, 2012).
A survey was conducted by the social media site QuantiaMD of more than 4,000 physicians. According to this survey it was found that more than 90% of the healthcare professionals and nurses engage in social media for the personal reasons, while 65% of the professionals also use social media for professional reasons (Schmitt, Sims-Giddens, and Booth, 2012). One third of the physicians and other professionals accepted the participation in the social networks. The survey reports that the professional and personal use of this platform is increasing day by day. The role of nurses is very critical in identification of information, interpretation as well as in transmission of information (Schmitt, Sims-Giddens, and Booth, 2012). Social media can assist the nurses and nursing students in enhancing their professional skills, professional communication, patient privacy, ethics and different health policies. Though there are many barriers in the incorporation of the social media healthcare practice, but there many valuable resources that can help nurses to improve nurse patient relationship (Barry, 2012).
Social media is a great opportunity for nurses and nursing professionals to enhance their understanding of professionalism, communication, ethics, legal policies and healthcare policies. Social media can be more than an emerging technology if it is used in the proper manner. It is a great technique of communication, which is influencing the way of organizations and individuals all over the world (Boyd & Ellison 2007). People receive and transmit information through social media, which promotes the meaning and values of social media. The main purpose of social media is to engage people through different websites and electronic means. The social networking sites connect people with each other, which allow people to see each other’s information and updates. As according to a study, “within these sites people also share their lists of followers and interact to exchange information, knowledge, opinions, and other forms of communication” (Boyd & Ellison 2007).
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation have proposed the policy for social media use by the nursing professionals. According to Grassley and Bartoletti (2009), using different blogs and wikis is the important part of enhancing nursing knowledge. The nurses can use these tools to enhance knowledge and sharing information with experts. Billings (2009) states the potential functions of wikis and blogs, according to which these social media resource help “in continuing nursing education, outlining benefits within clinical settings to promote interprofessional collaboration, facilitate peer support, and assist in project management.” Micro blogging and Twitter are considered as the most innovative approaches, which is used in sharing knowledge and distribution of the knowledge (Dreher, 2009). The functionalities of Twitter make it a very versatile and effective tool for the continuation of learning. It includes the facility of hashtags with different nursing workshops, conferences and work as an organized framework for making class discussion and sharing information (Bristol, 2010). The hashtags are used and repeated by the users in order to denote a specific topic or an event, which allows the greater visibility of a specific topic. Thus, different messages can be made available for the specific people and messages related to particular post can be easily shared (Bristol, 2010). Twitting allow nurses to reflect their own views, discuss their problems, interact with other professionals and experts and reinforce learning.
Facebook is another important social networking site that allows users to share their information with people in their group. This tool provides the research and education in a productive and safe manner (Amerson, 2011; Wink, 2011). Podcast is a virtual reality platform, which is also considered as the potential modality that offers interactivity in education and learning and facilitate different styles of learning (Ahern & Wink, 2010; Delaney, Pennington, & Blankenship, 2010). The nurses can join various community healths nursing classless to enhance their knowledge and capabilities (Boyd & Ellison 2007).
The common and logical social media platforms used to enhance nursing practice are Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, and LinkedIn. However, there are many other sources that allow nurses to share their knowledge and learn from different professionals. Social media also offer various social software that can be used to prepare presentations of the cases and nursing interventions (Boyd & Ellison 2007). Prezi is free mapping software that can be used to prepare presentations and share information in an accessible and easily understandable manner. The free presentations software are very effective in storing vital information and allow free viewing. Such software enhances the availability of the information. Nurse can use platforms like Prezi, Slishare, Voki etc to make interactive presentations and share their experiences. The social media tools are also helpful in making specific groups and improve communication (Setiogi, 2011). People within the group will be able to access information shared. The Google Hangouts tool is very effective and helpful for nurses. It allows the users to have video chat with more than two people at a same time (Setiogi, 2011).
Nurses can have video chat with their patients and improve their patient-nurse relationship. Through video chat nurses can help patient to understand vital information about their health and well-being. The free micro blogging helps to share information through chats (Setiogi, 2011). Thus, nurses can use social media for emergency communication, food alerts, and notification of natural disasters. However, the responsible utilization of social media is very important for the professionals, as it can affect the personal and private lives of people (Boyd & Ellison 2007).
Social media have been acknowledged as the global tool for the effective communication. Nurses are the members of a very innovative profession, by which nurses embrace social media actively and use its potential to enhance their practice and patient outcomes. According to Barry (2012), “the ubiquity of the Internet provides social media with the potential to improve both access to health information and services and equity in health care. Thus there are a number of successful nurse-led initiatives.”But, the democratizing and open nature of the social media tools can pose may potential risks for the individuals and organizations. The use of social media must be done by considering the global perspective, including the policies and guidelines (Barry, 2012). The impact of social media on nurses, healthcare consumers can be associated with various risk factors.
Various evidence shows that people using social media, are facing difficulty in trusting the health information available on Internet (Barry, 2012). People do not easily rely on any important information, and check sponsorship of the organization, recommendations and even discuss the findings with the healthcare professionals to understand the reliability of the online information (Barry 2012). So, one of the potential risks with social media is unregulated circulation of the information, “this may lead to bad decisions by both healthcare providers and members of the public” (Setiogi 2011).
Privacy is another risk, which is of great concern. For resolving these issues there are some policies and guidelines for the nurses and healthcare professionals to consider. Privacy and confidentiality of patients is a very important nursing practice and also considered as the code of ethics. It is the duty of nurses and other professionals to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of the patients and care receivers. The breach of this code can occur at various points such as, “including via comments on social media sites in which a patient is described in sufficient detail to be identified; referring to a patient in a degrading or demeaning manner; or posting videos or photos of patients”, as stated by Barry (2012).
Nurses are considered to act professionally and are responsible for developing the understanding of boundaries between professional, public and private life. Thus, nurses must accordingly. However, it is seen that with increase in number of online activities, these boundaries can often become blurred (Anderson 2011). The social media platforms, where breaches of privacy can occur, there could also be risk of unprofessional behavior, which includes bullying colleagues and employers (Barry 2012). The reputation of the healthcare organization can also be at risk by irresponsible use of social media. Nurses and other healthcare professionals must be aware of the legal regulations, organizational policies and guidelines as well as patient’s privacy (Barry 2012).
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