Grand Canyon University NRS-433V: Professionalism and Social Media

This report delves into the complex relationship between social media and nursing professionalism. It highlights how healthcare professionals, particularly nurses, utilize social media for both personal and professional purposes, including accessing information and networking. The report emphasizes the potential risks associated with social media use, such as breaches of patient confidentiality, violations of nursing ethics, and unprofessional conduct. It discusses the implications of these actions on patient-nurse relationships and the importance of upholding standards of conduct. The report also references the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and its role in protecting patient privacy. The report concludes by advocating for the responsible use of social media in healthcare, with a focus on making professional connections and avoiding the sharing of sensitive patient information.

Running head: PROFESSIONALISM AND SOCIAL MEDIA 1
Professionalism and Social Media
Name
Institutional Affiliation

PROFFESIONALISM AND SOCIAL MEDIA 2
PROFESSIONALISM AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media is characterized as web-based channels that enable clients to sharply connect and
specifically self-present, either in real-time or asynchronously, with both wide and slender
spectators who get an incentive from client produced content and the view of cooperation with
others. This ordinarily incorporates such long-range informal communication destinations as
Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (Ross & Cross 2019). A high extent of healthcare
professionals utilizes social media for individual use. Others think about social media,
particularly Facebook and Twitter, as an apparatus for professional improvement, as a method
for getting to data, promoting practices and administrations, openings for job opportunities, just
as imparting or including your insight issues important to you and others online.
However, other social media research has been carried out that has implications for the
professional and the patient-nurse relationship. Quite a bit of this research has featured occasions
where nurse’s social media activities and their contents might harm the implicit agreement that
exists among society and healthcare professionals (Greer, Hermanns, Abel & Njoki 2019). For
example, having an online association with patients, breaching the confidentiality of patients in
social media posts and composing rude remarks about partners and employers. For example, in
an example higher percentage of the social media activities were in violation of the nursing
ethics, 34% involved the contents which are considered unprofessional (34.2%), involved
substance abuse (1.6%), posting patients’ data (1.6%), and delineations of an unlawful acts
(1.1.%).

PROFFESIONALISM AND SOCIAL MEDIA 3
Nurses have a responsibility to uphold a standard of conduct consistent with the standards
governing the profession of nursing at work and in their personal lives. Effective nurse and
patients’ relationship can only be built on trust. The patients must have confidence that the nurse
attending to them will guard their personal information and dignity. Patients can be reluctant to
disclose their personal information in case they fear that the data may be disseminated beyond
the legitimate requirement of healthcare.
Federal law defines the privacy of patients through the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act. The HIPAA act intends to protect the patients’ confidentiality and privacy
through defining the information and through the establishment of how the information may be
put in use by the concerned persons in specific circumstances. Social media posts by nurses can
result to breach intentional or unintentional breach of patients’ private of confidential
information (Moore & Frye 2019).
For example, a licensed nurse one day used her cell phone to take pictures of her mental
patient and later shared on social media without the consent of the patient. The patient became a
public a topic until it aroused the interest of the nurse’s employer. The action led to termination
of his contract due to breach of confidentiality. This is unethical and violates the HIPAA codes
of conduct hence can result in punitive consequences to the nurse.
All people as equally valuable before God. Hence, every effort towards the societies in which
people’s values are acknowledged, conserved, and supported is encouraged. Patients deserve
respect for the inherent dignity just as the public. There is a need for the protection,
acknowledgement, and application of the doctrines of the HIPAA so that the patients’ dignity

PROFFESIONALISM AND SOCIAL MEDIA 4
and privacy are upheld (Beltran & Miller 2019). Social media should be used with a lot of
restraint to sensitive data majorly for making professional links rather than publishing
information.

PROFFESIONALISM AND SOCIAL MEDIA 5
References
Beltran, S. J., & Miller, V. J. (2019). Breaking Out of the Silo: A Systematic Review of
University-Level Gerontological Curricula in Social Work and Nursing Programs. Journal of
Social Work Education, 1-26.
Greer, D. B., Hermanns, M., Abel, W. M., & Njoki, T. (2019). Exploring Nursing Students'
Smartphone Use in the Clinical Setting. Medsurg Nursing, 28(3), 163-182.
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, just-119.
Ross, P., & Cross, R. (2019). Rise of the e-Nurse: the power of social media in
nursing. Contemporary Nurse, 55(2-3), 211-220.