Smart Phone and Social Media Use in Healthcare
Introduction
Smart phones and social media sites are used day to day in the average American life. They are being used at home as well as on the job. According to the article Social Media - A Virtual Pandora’s Box: Prevalence, Possible Legal Liabilities, and Policies it states, “A survey conducted by InSites Consulting (Van Belleghem & Pallini, 2012) reported that 80% of all American companies used Facebook, and 45% used Twitter” (Jennings, Blount, & Weatherly, 2014). These statistics prove how much social media is being used today. With the creation of smart phones people now have fast and easy access to the Internet. Going home and posting about the long day at work you may have had may seem
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You may be thinking that there is no harm in posting about your day but somebody that knows the patient or the situation of the patient can see what you posted and report you to the boards of nursing (BON), and …show more content…
According to Ventola (2014), “health care professionals use medical devices and apps for many purposes, most of which can be grouped under five broad categories: administration, health record maintenance and access, communications and consulting, reference and information gathering, and medical education” (Ventola, 2014). Smart phones provide healthcare workers with easy access to information. If a healthcare worker has a question that they need to find an answer to they can easily pull out their smart phones and search databases to provide them with factual information within minutes. There are medical applications that exist so health care providers can have easy access to patient data, if needed. Smart phones and social media sites also provide health care workers with easy communication. The three major disadvantages with smart phone use in health care are security, ethical, and confidentiality issues. An example of breaching the security, ethical, and confidentiality rules is the scenario where the nurse is at home on Facebook and Instagram, and decides since she’s off of work and on her own personal time that it is okay to state that she got a phone number, the name, and post a picture of the famous singer that she had cared for the night before. As a nurse it is her legal responsibility to protect the privacy of her patient. She doesn’t state what happened
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, sometimes things we should not share. This is not about Facebook; its essence is respecting others privacy and refusing to participate in activity that may divulge private medical information about anyone. Crossing that line, making clear the intent to become a part of the health care sector, changes your responsibility toward identifying information regarding a person other than yourself, and that information dies with you or there can be harsh consequences.
... and HIPAA, Does instant access and availability from mobile technology jeopardize patient privacy? [Electronic version] Nursing Management, June 2007, 38-40
...s and there are many advantages to using social media from our Smartphones. We must be very careful especially in the medical field. Using social media can be helpful when trying to expand people’s knowledge of medical information but when it comes to using our Smartphones around our patients when it is not related to their treatment process we should remember HIPPA and whenever in doubt if what we’re sharing is ethically wrong we can review the HIPPA guidelines to make sure.
Advances in technology have influences our society at home, work and in our health care. It all started with online banking, atm cards, and availability of children’s grades online, and buying tickets for social outings. There was nothing electronic about going the doctor’s office. Health care cost has been rising and medical errors resulting in loss of life cried for change. As technologies advanced, the process to reduce medical errors and protect important health care information was evolving. In January 2004, President Bush announced in the State of the Union address the plan to launch an electronic health record (EHR) within the next ten years (American Healthtech, 2012).
The rising cost of health care is creating a shift toward new care models that promote health prevention and wellness. This shift focuses on changing the way health care is delivered as well as where delivery occurs. Mobile health technology has served as a catalyst for this transformation enabling care delivery in the outpatient setting while keeping individuals linked to health professionals. Mobile health technology reduces health care costs via monitoring and intervention before conditions become acute preventing associated complications and hospitalization. Sensor technology and mobile applications facilitate knowledge and empowerment creating a patient centric care model focused on health improvement. Mobile health is poised to alleviate
Social media is affecting all spheres of life and no profession is left untouched by the impact of social media and nursing profession is no exception. Nobody can deny the benefits of social media for the profession of nursing yet its disadvantages for the registered nurses and student nurses during clinical practice cannot be ignored. “Social media can be defined as the constellation of internet-based tools that help a user to connect, collaborate, and communicate with others in real time” (Ressler & Glazer, 2010). Social media is growing at a very rapid rate and is now the mainstream communication method for most of the global population (http://www.internetworldstats.com/facebook.htm). It has brought a tremendous revolution in communication and disseminating information to nurses round the world.
As I mention in a privacy post privacy and security of patients records is the main reason social media can be an issue in Healthcare facilities. The breach of patients privacy and security are some of the major negative affect that technology has already has on healthcare. Their is a greater possibility that patients information can be hacked or be exposed easily by people (healthcare workers/providers) through technology (social media)
Registered nurse (Gemma) received a call from the patient's wife (Lucinda) to ask her about her husband's condition and ongoing treatment details, like patient (Salvatore) treatment details, just to find further information about her husband's diagnosis on the internet. There is a breach of a patient's privacy and confidentiality if Gemma shares the information. Nurses are able to communicate about patient-related information with other health professionals via social media or other means of technology, i.e. telephone calls, in regards to patient care. However, this type of technology often leads to a breach of patient privacy and confidentiality (Berman et. al, 2015,
...ncement can revolutionize the healthcare sector. Smartphones are more affordable, more accessible to the population than computers because these days everyone own a smartphone and are easier to carry. In the recent years the use of cell phones and wireless sensors to gather data and access health data has grown up tremendously. Lot of mobile applications are already available in the market that count your daily calories intake, keeps track of your nutrition’s and workout plans.
Privacy and confidentiality are essential rights of the public society. Shielding those rights, with respect to an individual’s personal health information, is the nurses ethical and legal obligation as health care providers. As new demands of advanced technology use in health are is increasing, it is very significant for nurses to maintain the privacy and confidentially as the professional connection of their patients and colleagues are dependent on it (Gorea RK, Gorea A, Gorea A, 2016)
McNally, Frey, and Crossan (2017) completed a study using the qualitative descriptive method to identify nurse managers and student nurses’ perceptions of the use of personal smartphones or tablets as an educational implement in clinical settings. The sample size included 13 student nurses and five nurse managers (McNally, Frey & Crossan, 2017). The results of the study demonstrated that even though nurse students perceived personally owned technology as a useful tool in researching relevant clinical information, nurse managers associated the use of personal phones and tablets with unprofessional behaviors that could potentially lead to concerns regarding safety and security (McNally, Frey & Crossan, 2017). A new nurse or student nurse needs to ensure his or her behavior is appropriate for the clinical settings, and all professional behavior requirements are fulfilled.
Online communication has skyrocketed ever since beginning of chat rooms and social media powerhouses such as Facebook. More and more public health advocates and agencies are utilizing social media as a way to communicate healthy living tips and prevention advice. In addition to these types of online communication, the market for downloadable applications has become a phenomenon. Consumers can now download free and priced health and wellness applications onto the smartphones or tablets that will record their calorie consumption, display the calo...
While it can cause harm, technology has many good qualities. Health care facilities can work together efficiently to use social media to engage patients to maintain health care needs and promote treatment options worldwide. Healthcare professional can also teach other doctors and nurses through Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites. Social media can create innovation and gives the whole medical field a educational value which should be embraced. Phones are also used by patients to gain knowledge that can be used to better their own life: “19% of smartphone owners have at least one health app on their phone. Exercise, diet, and weight apps are the most popular types” (Penn,
We are living in electrifying times. Mobile health (mHealth) technology is changing every facet of the way we live. Possibly no area is more imperative or more reflective than the improvements we are observing in healthcare (Fox & Duggan, 2012). In current years, there has been an increase of wearable devices, social media, smartphone apps, and telehealth, and each has immense promise for the future of organized health care (Fox & Duggan, 2012). With the capacity to assemble and interpret patient-made data, these mHealth tools keep the assurance of changing the way health care is provided, proposing patients their own customized medical guidance (Manojlovich et al., 2015). Health care availability, affordability, and quality are
In other words, ICT basically promotes professionalism and reduce human effort as well as reducing the chances of erring. Healthcare simply means preventing, diagnosing and curing ailments that terminate life and reduce lifespan of human and all living things. In other words, the prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of mental and physical well-being through the services offered by the medical and allied health professions. Information and Communications Technology (ICT) play a vital role in improving health care for humanity. It is efficient in providing, communicating and storing certain information about users and uses. ICT helps in bridging the gap created in health sector and may be used to enhance efficient relationships between the healthcare providers and health researchers. In other words, through the development of databases and other applications, ICT enhances health research and; this provides the capacity to improve health system efficiencies and prevent medical errors. The use of ICT can never be evaluated without