Nursing is professionally and personally a thought-provoking discipline. Following the rapid increase in the accessibility and the acceptance of social media, nurses have changed this setting into sharing of experiences coming up with solutions for challenging situations on the continuous inflexibilities of the nursing profession. Social media skills are increasingly used in hospitals, especially when caring for patients. Nurses use a lot of social media platforms to advance their goals. The RNs can communicate efficiently through Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Skype, and YouTube. Social media use has also raised the regulatory and legal concerns. This section discusses ethical issues and implications of using social media for the nurses both at the individual level and at the workplace. Social media has opened new communication methods among the RNs.
Violating Patient’s Privacy and Confidentiality
Upholding privacy and confidentiality is very important for the patient and the nurse’s relationship as it is essential to preserve the patient trust for competent clinical care. Ventola (2014 ) notes that social media use in healthcare by the nurses has raised a number of issues concerning the personal and professional boundaries, accountability, trustworthiness, and integrity of the nurses. The use of social media for both the research and support is unusual as it is done incorrectly, and this can breach the patients’ confidentiality enabling their essential information to be accessed online. Denecke et al. (2015 ) note that most of the posted social media sites end up indexed and also archived on the search engines. It is very important for patients and their situations not to be identified using the um information which is available online or putting the patient information on the internet in any context.
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Disparaging employers and co-workers Online
Denecke et al. (2015 ) note that posting of complaints about the employees and disparaging remarks about the coworkers can lead to the disciplinary actions in the nursing board and the workplace. The National Council of State Boards of Nursing States argues that Online remarks which are posted by the nurses about the co-workers even if posted during the non- working hours can establish violence. Such activities might create issues to employers and regulators as a result of the ramifications of the safety of patients. Such remarks can as well be very harmful to the interconnectedness of the healthcare staff and can cause sanction of the nurses. It is well known that this occurs in the workplace and social media makes it very easy making the scope of bullying very considerable in the nursing environment. Bullying in the nursing environment can lead to defamation as t is prosecuted under the Defamation Act 2005 ( Levati, 2014 ).
Abusive behavior among the nurses is a problem that is recognized within the profession as a stressor and a psychological hazard in the workplace. A toxic environment is created with serious consequences to the victims and the organization at large. Licensed practical nurses are accountable for practicing safe, ethical, and competent manner of respect to others on the social media contributing positively to their safe and healthy working environment. The nurse’s accountability is coded in the Standards of Practice and the Codes of Ethics of the nursing profession. Nurses are responsible for ensuring that they protect the health and the safety of others and the patients, as indicated in the legislation.
References
Denecke, K., Bamidis, P., Bond, C., Gabarron, E., Househ, M., Lau, A. Y. S.... & Hansen, M. (2015). Ethical issues of social media usage in healthcare. Yearbook of medical informatics , 24 (01), 137-147.
Levati, S. (2014). Professional conduct among registered nurses in the use of online social networking sites. Journal of advanced nursing , 70 (10), 2284-2292.
Ventola, C. Lee. "Social media and health care professionals: benefits, risks, and best practices." Pharmacy and Therapeutics 39.7 (2014): 491.
