The Use of Smartphones and Social Media in Healthcare

This paper explores the use of smartphones and social media in healthcare, including the HIPAA Act, consequences, recommendations, advantages, disadvantages, and ethical, professional and legal issues. It also discusses a healthcare scenario related to HIPAA and the professional, ethical and legal considerations of smartphone use in the workplace.

Running head: USE OF SMARTPHONES IN HEALTHCARE
The Use of Smartphones and Social Media in Healthcare

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Abstract
The purpose of this paper will be to look at the use of smart phones and social media
in healthcare and look at the HIPAA Act that governs the use of technology in healthcare.
Other aspects to be covered are consequences and recommendations based on the scenario,
the advantages and disadvantages of using smart phones, the ethical, professional and legal
issues presented by wrongful use of this technology and recommendations.

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Introduction
The use of smart phones especially in hospitals and other healthcare facilities has
gone up considerably over the years as more doctors, nurses and other clinicians embrace it.
The reason for this is smart phones enable better coordination and communication of
healthcare, they allow for direct patient management, they improve on efficiency and they
reduce healthcare costs (Mayes & White, 2016). The purpose of this paper will be to look at
the law that governs the use of smart phones in the work place, their advantages and
disadvantages and the professional, ethical and legal considerations.
Healthcare Scenario with relation to HIPAA
To prevent health information from being accessed by the wrong people, the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was created with a goal to
protect the health information of people from being accessed and disclosed by the wrong
people, at the wrong time and for the wrong reason (Sullivan, 2004, p.27). In healthcare, the
use of smart phones and social media presents compliance challenges with the regulations of
HIPAA (Zabel, 2016).
With regards to the scenario, the ending that will be discussed is conclusion four
where an investigation is being conducted for HIPAA violations on a celebrity who had been
admitted to the hospital. It is mentioned that the nurse sent the photos to her best friend who
it can be assumed sold them to Gossip Gazette. Alternatively a member of staff or a patient
might have accessed her phone without her knowledge, saw the photos and sold them. The
nurse at this point needs to present herself to the investigating authority, informing them of
everything that she did from when the patient was admitted to when the photos were released
by the Gazette. Most importantly, she needs to mention that she shared the photos with her
friend and no one else. However the outcome, the nurse is in direct violation of the HIPAA

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act because she took a photo of his personal information, took a picture of him while
unconscious and unable to give his consent. The legal ramifications for this exist in the
HIPAA Privacy Rule which all healthcare personnel are required to follow (Zabel, 2016).
The Privacy rule is meant to give patients control over the use and release of their
information, establish appropriate safeguards that all healthcare providers must adhere to and
it holds people who violate this rule accountable in criminal and civil penalties which range
from $100 to $1.5 million (HHS.gov, 2013). According to Zabel (2016), a healthcare
employee who discloses patient information to friends and/or co-workers is in violation of the
HIPAA Privacy Rule and risks losing their job.
It doesn’t matter that her friend or someone else sold the photos to Gossip Gazette.
The nurse violated professional, ethical and legal codes of conduct that govern patient
confidentiality which all healthcare employees should follow. Posting and sharing pictures of
the patient with others, while harmless, is a HIPAA violation because in this case a lot of
people will recognise the patient because he is a celebrity, they will know the doctor treating
him, and they will know his current health condition (Zabel, 2016).
What the nurse should have done is restrict the conversation about the patient to her
friend, regardless of whether he is a celebrity or not (Zable, 2016). If she followed the code of
ethics for nurses, she should have known that she has a duty of care and is required to
professionally and ethically keep patient information confidential. This means she cannot
release any personal data on the client without his consent or the authorization of a legal
authority. Also, knowing that she had photos of her patient in her phone, she should have put
in safeguards such as a password and encryption software to prevent anyone from accessing
her phone without her knowledge (Zabel, 2016).

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Smart phones
The introduction of mobile devices in healthcare has improved the follow-up process
after discharge with patients where doctors and nurses are able to better coordinate and
communicate with the patient. Mobile technology has also made it possible to have seamless
data flow in the health care setting as doctors, nurses and pharmacists have more control on
information dispersion because the healthcare system is complex and there is continuous
dataflow (Kathooria, 2017).
While it might seem that smartphone technology is mostly a preserve of developed
countries, developing countries such as India have incorporated this technology to monitor
and manage the millions of people suffering from diabetes, HIV and Hepatitis (Mayes &
White, 2016). The Health Tablet, created by an Indian public health doctor, is a portable
diagnostic device that can be used to record diagnostic tests such as blood sugar levels,
Hepatitis B and HIV status and also complete blood counts. This will allow doctors and
nurses in rural parts of India to diagnose and treat their patients at the point of care (Mayes &
White, 2016).
According to Martinez-Perez, Torre-Diez and Lopez-Coronado (2014), health-apps
pose data privacy risks where there is a failure to secure the collection and management of
people’s data by mobile health-apps. Also, mobile phones present some risks to health care
providers some of which are; they lack authentication where users don’t have passwords or
biometric identification making it easy for anyone to access health information on the
device, the data stored in phones is not encrypted and can be easily retrieved and shared by
those who have access to the device, phones that use a public wireless network to send and
receive information increase the risk of exposing a patient’s information (Barrett, 2011).

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Professional, Ethical and Legal Issues
Nabulyato, Jeyaseelan, Malagelada and Heaton (2016), carried out a study on the
professional, legal and ethical considerations of smartphone use in orthopaedics. They
identified the following as issues related to patient confidentiality; there was no patient
consent especially when taking photos of wounds, the photos of patients had identifiers
present, the storage and management of patient information was not secure because most
smartphones like the iPhone have automated “cloud” systems that backup all data to
mainframes where external companies that have no direct role in patient care have access to
sensitive data (2016, p.255).
To mitigate breaches in health information clinicians should gain consent from the
patient and allowing them to participate in decisions, making sure that patient privacy and
dignity are followed especially during visual/audio recordings. They should also explain the
purpose of these recordings to patients before obtaining their consent (2016, p.255) and get
consent from a person of legal authority when recordings are necessary in unconscious
patients (2016, p.256).
To conclude, the nurse in question should have maintained patient confidentiality and
acted in a professional manner while providing care by following the law on patient privacy
and being aware of the professional, legal and ethical issues related to smartphone use in the
workplace.

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References
Barrett, C.(2011). Healthcare providers may violate HIPAA by using mobile devices to
communicate with patients. ABA Health Esource, 8(2). Retrieved from
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HHS.gov(2013). What does the HIPAA privacy rule do? Retrieved from
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do/index.html
Kathooria, M.(2017). 8 benefits of mobile devices in healthcare that you need to know.
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healthcare
Martínez-Pérez, B., Torre-Díez, I. & López-Coronado, M. (2014). Privacy and Security in
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Mayes, J. & White, A.(2016). How smartphone technology is changing healthcare in
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mobile-device-benefits-in-healthcare
Nabulyato, W.M., Jeyaseelan, L., Malagelada, F., & Heaton, S.(2016). Legal, ethical and
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Sullivan, J.M.(2004). HIPAA: A practical guide to the privacy and security of health data.
Illinois: American Bar Association Publishing
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