Smartphones and social media are one of the defining spectacles that are changing and reshaping the world as we know it today. The use of smartphones and social media presence in the sensitive healthcare industry has been on the rise in recent years. There has been various safety measures put in place to safeguard the professional and ethical issues of patients’ privacy and confidentiality. The objective of this article is to look into the regulations set by Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The regal requirements appropriate to the use of cellphones and social media. It also discusses the advantages and disadvantages of these technologies in healthcare. It describes the professional and ethical principles to the appropriate use of this technology. Smartphones and social media usage in healthcare make it easy to offer medical services but can have catastrophic effects if not monitored and regulations put in place to control them.
HIPAA regulations
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act provides for the Privacy Rule that accords patients to a high level of privacy with the rise of technological advances. The privacy rule establish common standards for protection of patient personal and health information. This act require healthcare providers to follow its requirements and provide confidentiality and security to stored and shared data. According to Moore (2019), these rules are set because of the sensitive nature of the patient information. The patients have the right of access, examine, obtain a copy of it and request changes on the same.
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It stipulates the conditions in which patient information can be disclosed and the terms of disclosure. Some of the instances that allow the healthcare provider to disclose this information such as to the person receiving treatment or through a written personal consent of the patient. This is because he or she is the subject of the same information. They are also allowed to disclose in circumstances where the patient is incapacitated as a third party. It can also be ordered to do so through a court order among other scenarios.
Ending scenario
As a day shift nurse discovers a phone on the table side, she discovers that it contains photographs of a well-known celebrity. She thinks they would make a perfect comeback into her social media presence after being absent for some time. She had been out after an ugly breakup a month ago. She shares the photos to her phone and hands over the lost and found phone to security office of the hospital. She edits the photo and adds her image beside the celebrity to look like they were hanging out on his hospital bed. She pushes the pictures into her social media accounts with a fancy hashtag. In a few hours she is the talk of the social media and her friends are all over her about it. In a matter of time, the hospital is handling a law suit from the company that represents the celebrity. They present her edited photos and she is the first person to get cuffed. A short investigation is conducted and the two nurses are accused of breaching the privacy of the patient. The hospital cannot offer legal representation as they are fighting their own accusations.
The consequences of these events are inevitable to both the nurses and the hospital. There are several ethical violations committed to the celebrity with regard to recording of the patient without his consent (Hazzam, 2018). There is also a breach in sharing of patient’s confidential information. The nurses are looking to face punishment in form of fines or jail time or even in some cases both. The healthcare providers are undergoing unnecessary costs of a lawsuit that could have been avoided. They may also have to pay costs in terms of compensation at the end of the lawsuit.
There are several practices and regulations that can be put into place to prevent these kind of scenarios. Regular seminars and refresher courses that train health workers on the importance of securing and keeping patient information confidential. These courses should teach and keep health workers up to date on consequences of violating privacy of the patients. Regular seminars keep them on toes on rules involving ethics and integrity. Teach health workers to treat all patients equally and impartially to suppress their excitement in presence of celebrities.
Smartphones and social media
A cellphone can become an advantage or disadvantage in any work setting. Social media can also provide great tools for enhancing service delivery to customers, but can have grievous consequences when mishandled. One of the advantages of smartphones in healthcare is social networking in professional healthcare (Pershad, 2018). Their details are scrutinized during registration safeguarding it from nonmembers. There are multiple protected social networks that are used to offer clinical and medical advice on their members. These digital systems also offer an effective way of quickly disperse medical information. They have been used regularly by members of the public and also medical organizations to spread urgent medical news. Through social media, a lot of people are able to receive credible information such as vaccination programs underway. Additionally, health centers and pharmaceutical companies use their social media accounts to offer information to the public.
Unfortunately, some of the good in smartphones come with the bad. Some of the disadvantages include being distractive. Even the slightest distraction in healthcare can lead to fatal consequences. Studies have shown that a number of health workers have used their cellphone at one time or another during their operations. Cellphones can also be a hygiene risk and be a sources of contamination interfering with the results. Another big concern is privacy and security issues (Moore, 2019). As illustrated in the example scenario, there is the risk of compromise by use of cellphone photos and videos. There is no guarantee that the smartphone users will not violate the privacy rule by disclosing personal or health information of the patients. These issues could disseminate fear and trust issues from patients. These violations attract consequences as stipulated in the Privacy Act.
Some of the professional and ethical principles to the appropriate use of social media and smartphones include involving medical workers to come up with policies and regulations involving use of smartphones in place of work (Jacob, 2019). Teaching workers to protect and keep their devices secure helps prevent from unauthorized access. It is also relevant to teach health workers the ethics and values of safeguarding patient information by keeping it secure and confidential.
In conclusion, there are various ethical concerns in the ever growing smartphone and social media usage in healthcare. As new ways emerge make it easy to offer medical services, there is need to develop regulations to manage and regulate them. It is evident that unregulated use of smartphones can have far and wide reaching consequences.
References
Hazzam, J., & Lahrech, A. (2018). Health Care Professionals’ Social Media Behavior and the Underlying Factors of Social Media Adoption and Use: Quantitative Study. Journal of medical Internet research , 20 (11), e12035.
Pershad, Y., Hangge, P., Albadawi, H., & Oklu, R. (2018). Social medicine: Twitter in healthcare. Journal of clinical medicine , 7 (6), 121.
Jacob, B., & Kamath, R. (2019). Introduction of a Universal EMR Integrated Online Healthcare Management System Mobile App in Hospitals throughout India and its Benefits to Patients, Hospitals and Governments. Indian Journal of Public Health Research & Development , 10 (2).
Moore, W., & Frye, S. A. (2019). A Review of the HIPAA, Part 1: History, PHI, and Privacy and Security Rules. Journal of nuclear medicine technology , jnmt-119.
