Ethical Issues in Smartphone Use in Clinical Setting

Running Head: ETHICAL ISSUES IN SMARTPHONE USE IN CLINICAL SETTING
Ethical issues in smartphone use in clinical setting
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ETHICAL ISSUES IN SMARTPHONE USE IN CLINICAL SETTING
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Ethical issues in smartphone use in clinical setting
Introduction
As smartphones have become more common in the general population since the invention of
Apple’s iPhone less than 10 years ago, there has also been a more impulsive use of mobile phones by
bedside healthcare providers in acute care environment. Nevertheless, there is not a clear consensus in
whether or not healthcare providers like nurses in acute care facilities should employ the use of
smartphones during the medical practice (Griffin & Kehoe, 2018). Some healthcare providers have not
acknowledged the use of smartphones because of the risk of compromising the privacy of the patients,
the unprofessionalism that is associated with the use of smartphones as well as the distracting them
during their practice. This paper will critically analyze privacy risks associated with the use of
smartphones by nurses in a clinical setting.
Two ethical issues linked with the use of smartphones by the nurses
Mobiles phones especially smartphones are having and will continue to have great impacts on
the delivery of healthcare in acute settings in Australia as well as other nations of the world. some
healthcare providers believe that mobile phones can be used to promptly search for relevant
information to their practice, record patient clinical information, facilitate safe medical decisions at the
point of care, and communicate effectively with other colleagues. Healthcare providers such as nurses
have been slow in adopting the mobile phone technology due to the status of their profession within the
healthcare institution settings (Day-Black, 2015). For instance, physicians are normally given easier
access to the technology required to manage and run administration and healthcare apps to have a
more relaxed approach toward the use of these technologies in their profession. However, nurses have
also been faced with ethical issues when using smartphones in the healthcare setting. For instance, the
use of smartphones by the nurse could threaten the confidentiality of the patients and also distract their
attention from offering effective and appropriate care to the patients.
Analysis and evaluation of Patient confidentiality and the use of smartphones
by healthcare providers
Details of an individual’s treatment and illness can be leaked since so many nurses use
smartphones to send details of the clinical cases to each other, entailing photographs of warns research,

ETHICAL ISSUES IN SMARTPHONE USE IN CLINICAL SETTING
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wounds, and x-ray results. Individuals are usually at risk of having their confidentiality and privacy
breached since up to two-thirds of nurses in Australia are using text messages as well as picture
messages to share various information, entailing wounds photographs when they are seeking for a
second opinion (Connolly
et al. 2018). Moreover, research findings have reported that sensitive details
of the conditions of the patient could be become public if the nurse’s smartphones were to be stolen or
lost or they inadvertently send a text message to a wrong person (Garwood, Claydon-Platt,
Wickramasinghe, Mackay & Smart, 2018). A research study was conducted among the 565 nurses and
288 doctors working at the six hospitals in London and it the research found that 66% of the nurses had
sent text message to communicate with a colleague concerning the patient. Moreover, just less than
45% of the nurses had sent picture messages of x-ray or a wound to their colleagues while 34% used
message apps (Allaert, Mazen, Legrand & Quantin, 2017).
Therefore, it is clear that nurses and other healthcare providers use messaging services in their
smartphones to send clinical information which are related to the patient to their colleagues. Moreover,
most nurses believe that there is nothing wrong in sharing patient information with the colleagues since
the information still remains in their devices. It should be noted that given that there is inadequate
encryption of data as well as the appropriate security modules, the transmission of an individual
information via these messaging apps and modalities is presently unsecure and can lead to inadvertent
disclosure of highly confidential and sensitive data especially if the smartphone is lost
Analysis and evaluation distractions from clinical tasks entailing decision making
Mobile phones especially smartphones have been identified to be detrimental to the cognitive
performance of nurses. The use of smartphones in an acute healthcare setting reduces focus, enhances
reaction time, as well as reduces performance of tasks which need critical concentration and decision
making. Moreover, it has been established that the use of smartphone by nurses has negative impact on
the safety of patients since nurses become engrossed with their smartphones such that even though
they may be looking at their patients, nothing actually registers (Aguilera-Manrique
et al. 2018). A study
done in Australia reported that every interruption to clinical care workflow at an Australian healthcare
facility was linked to a 13% rise in procedural failure as well as 12% rise in medical errors (Phelps, Scott,
Chauffeté-Manillier, Lenne & Jeunne, 2017). Adverse effects of smartphones by nurses and doctors
include interruptions as well as discordance between what nurses and doctors perceive as urgent. Most
nurses normally send text messages while preforming acute and critical operations to the patient which