We Can But Dare We Essay

According to Steven Waldern, director of the American Academy of Family Physicians Center for Health IT, social media has taken a toll on the healthcare industry. Patients are now interacting with patients that are going through a social media site, Patients like me. This site is used to improve the patient’s outcome, connect patients with one another, and enable research. This website has secure portals to ensure that patient information is kept personal or with only healthcare providers. (Hartford, 2012)

Social media is a fast growing platform, which can be used to enhance the effectiveness of the way in which a large public service such as the NHS communicates with the population (Bashar, Ahmad and Wasiq, 2012). In line with the growing rise of social media, social media practices are considered to have a growing influence on society. This report positions social media as a platform which offers opportunities for organisations and individuals alike to listen and to have opportunities to

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

The role of social media in healthcare follows the same principles as most other industries in terms of mass communication, global reach, engagement, and instantaneous feedback from and to a relevant group of people. In short, the healthcare social media platform is an effective, low cost method to share information, create communities, and maintain relationships with key groups.

Nowadays it seems like every organization has a social media account; including the facility where I work. Recent studies estimate “that 70% of U.S. health care organizations use social media, with Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube being the most popular” (Ventola, 2014, p. 494). As you mentioned social media is a good way for healthcare facilities to engage the public (Ventola, 2014, p. 491). It is also good way for the medical community to provide health information to the community that they support (Ventola, 2014, p. 491).

The use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram has grown exponentially. There are currently 1.5 billion Facebook users in the world (Statisa, 2015). The way the world use these websites has change. It is no longer used for the sole purpose of staying in touch with family and friends. It allows for the formation of groups of people with chronic diseases, which have the same illness to connect, share, compare symptoms, and treatment plans (Khans-Sarasohn, 2008). Research has shown that social media have revolutionize the health care system and is a valuable medium in disseminating information and promoting health on a larger scale (Jackson, Fraser, & Ash 2014). The social media can play an important role in providing a network for clinicians and patient alike to share and gather information amongst them. This type of medium allows the individual to become proactive and more involve in their plan of care. Due to the easy access of information, patients are no longer relying solely on what a doctors say. In other words what the doctor says is no longer final. It has now common for patients to seek alternate routes in finding information and treatments.

More than ever before, the explosion of social media has been dramatic and swift, fundamentally altering how individuals share personal experiences, search for information, form opinions and make decisions of daily living. The inexhaustibility, open and democratising disposition of social media has both great advantages and potential equally damaging risks, both individual and organizational. This essay considers the use of social media within the nursing profession; tertiary nursing practice and the impacts, potential pitfalls and educational advances that are encounted as a result of combing nursing and social media as well social medias impacts on student nurses on clinical placement. As we adjust and often benefit for the non static nature of social media, many nurses and nursing students have embraced social media, actively utilising its potential to enhance practice, education and influence health knowledge on a global platform.

The advancement in technology like Smartphones and Social Media has positively and negatively impacted the health care system. It has enabled

The number of physicians using mobile apps on their devices to research medical information, review healthcare applications, and consult with patients is sky rocketing. According to Kaufman (2011), “The ability to connect prescribers and patients through social media and mobile platforms has the potential to significantly improve health plan performance through member engagement and clinical decision support” (pg. 547-548). A smartphone can continuously assess a person’s physiology, behavior, environmental exposure, and other personal

Social media becomes important in people’s lives despite age, gender, social level, profession, language or locality. Modern technologies are used by individuals including student nurses across the world for different purposes, such as, to stay up to date with worldwide news; exchange information or ideas and share views; aid in recovery and education; keep in touch with family and friends. This comes with great responsibilities for nurses not only to become confident social media users and incorporate this knowledge into practice for patient and nurses benefits, but also to be aware of organisational policies and legislations in the workplace to avoid consequences on a “legal, ethical and professional” level for improper use of social media (Kientz & Kupperschmidt, 2011, p.1).

For people to obtain more information without going to the hospital or clinic, the use of media-sharing sites offer a large selection of important resources for education, community building, marketing and branding. “Among the most notable media-sharing sites for HCPs is The Doctors’ Channel (www.thedoctorschannel.com), which hosts videos featuring medical news, continuing medical education, and health care-related entertainment” (Ventola, C). These media-sharing sites are useful for people who want or need simple questions without the wait at a hospital. Another great source to get information from is blogs. Blogs are able to reach wide audiences, especially if a writer writes about a significant interest. Blogs may also provide writers to publish large amounts of information whether it’s through text or video. Most blogging platforms let readers respond to content that is published which allows an

Since its emergence in 1973 cell phone has become of the most efficient methods of communication but the functionality of the earlier version was strictly restricted only to placing important phone calls and nothing else. It wasn’t until decades later that amazing technological advancement turned this bulky uncomfortable piece of electronic into something extraordinarily more. Smartphones, along with social media, spread like wildfire and invaded every residence, every space, every workspace, every life, and changed forever the way humans interact and communicate. One of the most important workspaces it occupied in society was healthcare, and its use in it has been nothing short of controversy ever since. The controversy being how to delineate the limit usage of smartphones and social media in healthcare. The benefits, as well as the challenges smartphone usage present in healthcare, is something that should be objectively viewed when one weighs the impact it has on patient care. Together with social media, the benefit of smartphone usage in healthcare is apparent – according to 30 Amazing Mobile Health Technology Statistics for Today’s Physician by Govette (n.d), 72% of physician access drug information from smartphones, 63% of physician access medical research from tablets, 44% of physicians communicate with nurses and other staff from smartphones, 50% of physicians also access evidence-based clinical tools at point-of-care. It’s not only the physicians however who has reaped the benefits of smartphone usage and social media in healthcare, according to Wicklund (2015), “A new survey indicates nurses are relying more than ever on their smartphone for clinical care.” Although it is true that the use of smartphone and social media in healthcare is very beneficial as evidently shown in the aforementioned statistics, the challenges it poses to patient care as well as to protection of patient’s privacy and confidentiality is the kernel of the issue that needs attention. Healthcare is one of the major cornerstones of the society and patient care is the cornerstone of healthcare which consequently makes patients the highest priority. Patient care includes

Social media and smartphones allow for better communication between health care employees, peers, and patients because they provide multiple ways for each party to communicate with each other. For healthcare workers to communicate with each other, social media platforms such as, Linkedln, which is a professional site that allows healthcare professionals to network with each other (Miller, 2011). Other sites that healthcare professionals can network through are Facebook and Myspace. Having these social media platforms allows for healthcare workers to connect and share their thoughts with each other. Not only does it help coworkers communicate with each other, it also allows healthcare workers to communicate with patients. For example, patients can access social media platforms for information concerning their condition. By having these social media platforms, it allows for various ways patients can have access to health information.

In fact, members of the medical field are using social media for sharing medical information and providing patient care. According to a Pricewaterhouse Cooper survey of over a thousand patients and over a hundred healthcare executive what they thought of the way many healthcare companies are utilizing social media and the Web, results show the most trusted resources online are those posted by doctor's (60 percent), followed by nurse (56 percent), and hospitals (55 percent).

Social media has made an impression in every dimension of our lives, the dimension of healthcare is not far away, and is indeed catching up pretty expeditiously. In recent times, with emergence of social media era, "the freely available web-based platforms that facilitate information sharing of user-generated content, such as social networking sites, media-sharing sites, blogs, micro blogs, and wikis, has benefited the healthcare areas in many ways by playing the crucial role" (American Heart Association, 2013). However, the open and communizing shape of social media generates a number of potential risks, both at individual and organizational level.