Report on Social Media: Benefits, Risks, and Nursing Guidelines

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of social media's influence on contemporary healthcare practices. It begins with an introduction to social media's pervasive presence and its adoption by healthcare professionals, highlighting its potential to enhance communication, professional networking, and patient care. The report then delves into the context of social media platforms, detailing their diverse applications within healthcare, including professional networking sites, video sharing, and information aggregators. A critical aspect of the report addresses the benefits of social media, such as improved communication, support networks, and professional development opportunities for nurses. However, it also thoroughly examines the risks associated with social media use, including political, social, and legal issues, such as misinformation, privacy breaches, and professional conduct violations. The report critically analyzes the role of nursing staff in maintaining national and international guidelines during treatment within the context of social media, emphasizing the importance of ethical considerations, patient confidentiality, and adherence to professional standards. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, underscoring the need for healthcare professionals to navigate social media responsibly to maximize its benefits while mitigating potential risks. The report uses references to support the content.

Running head: Nursing
Social media and health care
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors Note

1Social media and healthcare
Introduction
Social media is the most common modern electronic technology and through this
platform, the whole world is at the fingertips of the users. The fast and remote features of
social media will help people to access and share information with other people. Health
professionals also embrace social networking sites to advance their career progress by
making connections among people. The connections from social media will lead to
innovative and efficient job opportunities for them. Social media can be used in the
improvement of professional networking and education, promotion of organizations, patient
care, public health programs, and patient education. The role of social media is important
while communicating with the public or patients to improve healthcare facilities by collecting
feedbacks, sharing and spreading information. The potential risk about the use of social
media by health professionals is related to breach of privacy and confidentiality regarding the
patient's information and legal issues. Different social, political and ethical issues can be
observed due to the rapid usage of social media amongst the healthcare professionals. The
essay gives a brief description of the effect of social media in Healthcare with its risk and
benefits. The essay will also critically analyse the role of nursing staff to maintain national or
International guidelines during treatment in this age of social media.
Context
Different social media platform
Social media is constantly evolving and is the most used internet-based tool. This
platform will help to communicate via sharing information, creating ideas, sending personal
images and messages with other content. Using social media is also known as Web 2.0 or
social networking as it allows the users to get different data and to send them at a certain
point of time to several persons. With the help of social media platforms, nurses and other
healthcare workers can share their information (study materials, therapeutic suggestions for

2Social media and healthcare
patients, legal compliances for the wellbeing of patients and their families, healthcare-
oriented survey reports) via blogs, videos, and photos. There are several features available on
different social media platforms that can be used for various purposes by the users. For
example; platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp are used for social
networking; platforms like LinkedIn, Monster.com, Recruit.net are considered for
professional networking; platform like YouTube is used for sharing videos on different issues
and photos also; knowledge information aggregator or Wikipedia is also considered as the
builder of a network in the society throughout the world and virtual reality or gaming
environment are mostly used entertainment-based networks.
Use of Social media in contemporary healthcare
An integrated literature review can be conducted to evaluate the rate of using social media
amongst the Healthcare professionals. The result of a study shows that emerging evidence
related to using social media among healthcare professionals for developing the virtual
communities that support professional networking, share information and deliver knowledge
on evidence-based practices (Rolls, Hansen, Jackson & Elliott, 2016).). It was conducted to
assess the popularity of online social media Urologists of Australia and New Zealand. The
result showed that 70% of participants have a prominent presence in their social media
account (Davies, Murphy, van Rij, Woo &Lawrentschuk, 2015). According to WHO, public
health professionals should also be aware of “Google insights” a web-based analytical tool
and analytical tips from social media users(www.who.int.,2020). WHO (World Health
Organisation) recognizes “Twitter” and other social media as a tool to share accurate data to
many people. Twitter provides instant streaming of information around the world. The users
can have information related to health conferences search for information and share web links
from their respective devices. World Health Organisation used Twitter during the H1 N1
pandemic (www.who.int. ,2020).

3Social media and healthcare
Professional guidelines for using Social media
Registered health practitioners of Australia have proper guidelines and code of ethics
regarding professional conduct to use social media. “Guidelines for advertising regulated
Health Services” has been set for confidentiality and privacy obligations, professional
conduct maintenance and to promote professional communication among the clients and
health professionals(www.ahpra.gov.au. ,2020). National registration and accreditation
scheme has the primary objective of using social media in Healthcare departments to increase
the facility and quality of the care. According to guidelines, every practitioner should use
their social media accounts with responsibility and accountability. They should not cross any
ethical and professional conduct while using social media. Patient confidentiality, cultural
awareness patient safety and patients ‘social and cultural believes should not be affected in
any circumstances. The code of conduct emphasizes on treating patients with respect and
communicate with them effectively (www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au. ,2020). Therefore,
health professionals are bound to maintain the professional relationship and boundaries with
the patient. The guidelines also ensure that breaching of any professional conduct and actions
which do not follow the social media policy of Australia will lead to legal circumstances
against the health professional.
Risks
Political issues
Political disengagements are serious problems across the world. The disengagements
can result in a declining level of trust among the policymakers and policy users. In policy-
making and adoption of the policies, the users can express their disagreements through social
media and conflicts of interest might be occurred (Bou-Karroum et al., 2017). According to
different researches, patients with special health complications and family members of the
patient are forming digitally network groups that are becoming special interest lobby groups

4Social media and healthcare
across the world. Their opinions can impact on the policymaking for public health. According
To WHO misinformation about different interventions(such as vaccinations, chemotherapy,
and other medicines) spread by social media among the common people. For example, during
critical vaccination campaigns for polio and yellow fever in Pakistan and South America
respectively; misinformation was spread across those countries through social media
(www.who.int.,2020). As a result, a collective effort could be observed to protect people’s
health and lives. Stakeholders can use social media for improving public health through the
process of health promotion via the Agenda Setting (Griffiths et al., 2015). According to
research, the agenda-setting process in social media incorporates the attributes such as
retweets, deliveries, total impressions, retweet impression and amplification multiplier in the
simulation (Chen et al., 2019). The study investigated that using social media personal
agenda can be established and as a result, The public policies might get affected.
Social issues
Social media such as LinkedIn and Skype are used by health care workers for their
professional purposes. They communicate with patients and other health professionals
through social media platforms. Although social media is used for different purposes such as
training provision, patient-doctor communication, and crowdsourcing of healthcare. The
electronic media records are integrated with the clinical environments by the social media in
several cases (hospital websites and Electronic health record system which allows physician
to physician and other interdisciplinary communications). Crowdsourcing can lead to
patients’ poor health condition and might be influenced by some other unprofessional social
media users(Hu &Kerschberg, 2017). Online medical surveys are conducted with the help of
social media platforms. Therefore different risks may be under lied in these procedures.
Information and self-determination, confidentiality, data security, patient’s security and
justice are some ethical aspects which might be affected by wide-ranging use of social

5Social media and healthcare
media(King& Snowden, 2020). It has been often observed that presence in social media can
cause defamation of healthcare providers by dissatisfied patients and competitors(Lupton,
2017). Trolling is very common in social media; but humiliating comments and behaviors in
social media might affect the cultural sensitivity of an individual (Kniffin& Palacio, 2018).
Boundary of patient-doctor relationship might be disrupted as the connection between client
and healthcare providers does not seem limited in the health care organization (Parish, Fazio,
Chan&Yellowlees, 2017).
Legal issues
As per the government regulations, physicians and nurses are never allowed to share
any information regarding the patient's treatment. Personal information of patients should not
be shared by any health professionals in social media without their consent. The privacy of
the patient and the healthcare professionals might be compromised. Harassment,
discrimination, defamation, disclosure of confidential information is evaluated under the
unauthorized activities which are recognized as illegal actions (Magaldi& Sales, 2017). The
healthcare professionals should maintain the lawsuits while advising any patient or enquirer
through online communicating platforms, as they might face so many questions and ask for
some relevant cause in case any legal problem will occur. The interactions and the advisories
should be documented in the patient’s chart to avoid any type of legal problem. The cases
considered as the emergent ones should be handled carefully, maintaining the protocols of
online health advisories. These are considered as the non-compliance to the professional and
legal conducts which are based on official guidelines.
Benefits
Support network
In the age of globalization, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube are some global
social networking sites that can connect thousands of people at a time via a platform.

6Social media and healthcare
According to a survey report, Twitter is accessed for 50000 times every day and has more
than 200 million subscribers or users (Gatson Smart, 2018). On the contrary, Facebook has
over 600 million users. Social networks based on public communication collaboration and
Information sharing therefore the social networking sites are popular among the health
professionals also (Benson, &Filippaios, 2019). As a result of the development and increment
of communication, the patient-doctor-communication has become easier. Feedbacks can be
given to the patient by video conference (Tursunbayeva, Franco &Pagliari, 2017). Social
networking sites are very important for promoting knowledge of health providers with
improving their working ability. New relationships and networks can be found with the help
of social media. For example, being a part of the professional groups in LinkedIn and
Instagram business a healthcare professional might be benefited by gaining knowledge about
recent affairs and issues regarding health; helping patients to give information regarding the
promotion of health behavior, self-awareness, personal care and also to motivate them;
educating and interacting with patients, caregivers, students and colleagues (Van Deursen,
Verlage& van Laar, How are they benefited?? 2018).
Professionalnurses
In Australia, the registered nurses need to maintain 20 continuous professional
development points in every year. However, the situation becomes complicated for those who
live in rural areas. Therefore they take the help of social media online courses to get the
scores and to avoid the circumstances regarding geographical adversities. Many nursing
schools use social media for educational purposes. They utilize YouTube for the
demonstration purpose. The social media use is not restricted during the nursing education.
Moreover, the nurses can use social media as education provision and communication
purposes (Duke et l., 2017). Nurses often use Facebook for giving education to the patient

7Social media and healthcare
and improving the awareness among them. Healthcare informatics might be shared with a
broad community through the social media platform.
Communication
Peer to peer Healthcare procedure can be availed by the social media users. According
to a report, 25% of patients diagnosed with any chronic medical condition usually find a
similar group on social media (Devine, 2017). Social media promotes one to one
conversation privacy and confidentiality are conserved. In social media platforms, different
health articles and information are available. This leads to patient adherence which is
important for any Healthcare organization from any discipline. The availability of
information can help in increasing knowledge of both Healthcare workers and patience (Osei-
Frimpong, Wilson & Lemke, 2018). Improvement of knowledge will help in effective
communication. Through the social media Healthcare professionals of different countries are
connected. Therefore, the health professional from the country, where the crisis regarding
Healthcare support is present will be benefited by the suggestions of overseas health
professionals. Social and emotional support giving groups are very popular in today's world
of the internet. One of the most prevalent examples of emotional and social support is the
incident of Helen Campbell who used social media for her need for new lungs. Her online
campaign #BeAnOrganDonor on Twitter was one of the most popular campaigns for organ
donation. Social media can be used to spread wrong information by some people. However, it
can be considered as an educational platform for any common man. Through this media,
people can come to know about different medical conditions and their intervention
procedures not only from the local or National Health experts but also from International
health experts. Social media can be used for spreading self-awareness among the people.
Recently World Health Organisation has collaborated with social media influencers to create
their videos in Public Interest for coronavirus awareness (Merchant& Lurie, 2020).

8Social media and healthcare
Improving patient outcomes
Another study has shown that social media can play a vital role in enhancing the quality of
life among new generation mothers. This study has shown that social support can be observed
among the digital users. The patient can attend online consultation which is easy in terms of
processing and also decreases the workload of practitioners (Benetoli, Chen &Aslani, 2018).
With the help of different apps, a patient can access the ample number of information with
one click on his or her devices. Patients will be benefitted if they use social media for their
therapeutic purposes. According to a research, during 2011 and 2016, many patients with
different chronic or critical diseases have suffered from depression and got mental health
support from the social media groups.
Conclusion
This essay can conclude that the range of positive and negative impacts of social media can
be presented in the healthcare sector. However, social media can be used for wider purposes
to increase health literacy among patients. Due to the use of social media platforms,
confidentiality of patients and health workers is disrupted as the interest of sharing
information and frequent uploading of contents are significant among the users. With the help
of proper organizational support and compliance with the standard regulations, professional
code might be conserved. Institutions may convey Public Health messages to increase their
efficacy and safety by public awareness and health initiatives but the violation of professional
codes due to any circumstances will lead to legal actions.

9Social media and healthcare
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