Preview

Healthcare Professionalism in the Age of Social Media

Best Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1323 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Healthcare Professionalism in the Age of Social Media
James Nibert
HCA 656
Extra Credit Assignment
12-01-10

Healthcare Professionalism in the Age of Social Media

Introduction Social media, like the postal letter, telephone and e-mail before it, has revolutionized the ways in which people communicate in the modern world. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have hundreds of millions of users that have chosen this medium to communicate with the world at large. Blogs, Wikis and podcasts further contribute to the dominant communication tool of the modern world: social media. This new form of communication has been quickly adopted by professionals of all varieties, but it has specific implications for physicians and related healthcare professionals. As the ability of a physician to effectively perform their job, and for the patient to respect the physician’s advice, is dependent on the trust between them, at what point does the physician’s private life in terms of social media begin to affect his or her professional life? It is estimated that 59% of American adults searched for medical advice online in a 12 month period. Included in these searches were many reviews of a physician’s conduct and abilities (McKay, 2010). As this new form of communication becomes increasingly more common, medical professionals will need to take precautions to insulate themselves both legally and ethically, and to retain the trust of their patients that is vital to the effective functioning of their job.

Methodology The methodology of this research paper was conducted in the most systematic way possible given the time and resource limitations of the project. In should be noted that this particular field of study, while increasingly popular, is still very recent and thus limited in terms of depth and availability of appropriate sources. The search began initially with a search of Google using the phrases, “professionalism and online healthcare,” “Health 2.0 and professionalism,” “ethics and online



References: McKay, L. (2010). A Prescription for Social Media. Retrieved November, 29 2010 from www.destinationCRM.com Thompson, L., Dawson, K., Ferdig, R., Black, E., Boyer, J., Coutts, J., Black, N. (2008) The Intersection of Online Social Networking with Medical Professionalism. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 23(7): 954-7. Jain, S. (2009) Practicing Medicine in the Age of Facebook. New England Journal of Medicine, 361(7) 649-651. Hawn, C. (2009) Take Two Aspirin and Tweet Me in the Morning: How Twitter, Facebook, And Other Social Media Are Reshaping Healthcare. Health Affairs, 28(2) 361-368. Chen, P. (2009) Medicine in the Age of Twitter. Retrieved November 29, 2010 from www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/health/11chen.html American Medical Association. (2010) AMA Policy: Professionalism in the Use of Social Media. Retrieved December 1, 2010 from www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/meeting/professionalism-social-media.html

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Walters-Salas, E. (2012). Social media and HIPAA compliance. Bariatric Nursing and Surgical Patient Care, 7(2), 85-86. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/bar.2012.9984…

    • 1334 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    According to Barry J Harkrider the popular usage of social networks is having a great effect on healthcare. Social…

    • 242 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Barnett, S., Jones, S.C., Iverson, D., & Bonney, A. (2012). General practice training and virtual communities of practice-a review of the literature. Retrieved from http://www.biomedicalcentral.com/1471-2296/13/87…

    • 12139 Words
    • 67 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Shortly after the turn of this century, the implementation of web-based technology began to flourish in private physician’s practices. The revolution of virtual communication allows patients and doctors to connect online without the need for a face-to-face visit. The impact of mobile virtual communication affects the quality of care, quality of life, cost, and access for patients. The creation of a virtual physician visit application produces social, ethical, and economic effects on the Apple Corporation.…

    • 1076 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Traditional, social, and electronic media for health care communication has advantages and disadvantages. Awareness may be raised and increase knowledge of an issue may happen with social media. Although the all audience 's needs can be targeted, social media and traditional communication may not be able to assemble all of the communication goals that are being attended to. There are various ways that I will reach out to the media in…

    • 1122 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Combining marketing and social networking is what education campaigns have strived to do because their inception although the mode has changed over the years. Social networking as currently known is done on the Internet on specific websites instead of in churches, at work, or a town meeting. Social media has exploded in recent years and provides an enormous audience for distributing health care information. The British Medical Journal states, “Social marketing is effective on a population level, and healthcare providers can contribute to its effectiveness” (Evans, 2006, p. 1).…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Social media poses threat to all health care environments, if not used appropriately. I agree that the inappropriate use of social media does violate the code of ethics, the healthcare facilities policy and HIPPA. The inappropriate use of social media can range from posting information on a patient’s condition to checking Facebook instead of giving a patient insulin when their glucose levels are in the 200+ range. The use of social media at the workplace continues to pose a distraction to employees. Within the nursing practices studies have shown that social media has “the potential to cause distractions and interruptions. Several studies have implicated technology as a contributing factor in causing distractions and interruptions among nurses.…

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Farooqi, H. (2013). Effect of facebook on the life of medical university students. International Archives of Medicine, 6(40), doi: 10.1186…

    • 3670 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Plain communication failures have been revealed to cause medical errors, duplicating imaging and testing, and generally unfortunate care organization. Physicians-to-physicians communication in and out of the hospital has been unpredictable or absent. Furthermore, physician-to-physician communication has been missing in terms of steadiness, suitability, and immediacy. Social networks could possibly expand communication by creating everlasting channels (network connections) amongst several doctors and between doctors and the patients. Communication amongst doctors might be developed through extensive contribution in online physician group of people. Astonishingly, a current survey by Manhattan Research found that 60% of doctors are now using, or are captivated in consuming, online doctor societies.…

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Social networking is a large part of Healthcare Management and is growing all the time. From the research I have done, social networking is not only accepted but encouraged in this field.…

    • 267 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Communications Paper

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Randolph, S. A. (2012). Using social media and networking in health care. Workplace Health & Safety, 60(1), 44-44. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3928/21650799-20111227-14…

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    presence while Twitter manages more than 140 million Tweets daily. Nurses are making connections using…

    • 423 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the past decade, there has been a steady rise in the usage of social media resources in health fields for health interventions. zxz xxxxOne of the ways social media resources have been used is to improve medication adherence, which is of particular interest due to the large estimated costs associated with medication non-adherence. This study will specifically look at how commonly community pharmacists use social media based medication adherence resources, and measures their perceptions of such resources. This…

    • 977 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    There are many advantages when it comes to the use of traditional, electronic, and social media communication in health care. An advantage to traditional media is that the information we want to deliver can reach a wider audience at one time with the use of radio, newspapers, telephone conversations, television broadcasts, magazines, and face-to-face conversations. “The most…

    • 1077 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    With so many technological advances in today’s society, it is no wonder why industrialized nations like the United States are constantly changing and always seeking to find the next best thing. Social media is one of the several technological advances currently thriving in American society. Social media has significantly changed the way of communication between organizations, communities, and individuals through websites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.…

    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays