Promoting Professionalism In Healthcare

Professionalism has a basis in individual characteristics and values, but is also largely defined by context. Its definition varies with a number of factors, including organizational support, the workplace, the expectations of others, and the specifics of each service user / patient encounter1. As an important part of a healthcare team, it is important for diagnostic imaging professionals to maintain a credible professional image, promote professionalism, and practice high ethical standards in order to save the patient and the community they serve well. There are many ways to develop and promote professionalism in healthcare and some of these professional characteristics are developed early in life experience, and as well through education, training, and work experience.
Most healthcare professionals belong to an organization where they are required to register and be certified in order to be able to practice in their field of healthcare. For Radiologic Technologist, the organization is the American Registry of Radiologic Technologist (ARRT). The purpose of the organization is to ensure that the healthcare professional is qualified and has internalized a set of professional values in order to serve and act in the best interest of the patient. The Standards of Ethics provides proactive
guidance on what it means to be qualified and to motivate and promote a culture of ethical behavior within the profession.2
Promoting professionalism and practicing high ethical standards in healthcare helps ensure the community that the profession is dedicated to providing quality patient healthcare, patient safety, and always acting in the best interest of the patient.
Professionalism requires adherence to codes and regulation, integrity, team work, good attitude and appearance, role boundaries, good communication, and how the individual view their own profession. Professionalism in healthcare revolves around good patient care, putting the patient interest first, and maintaining standards of care at all times, and demonstrating judgement and maintaining competency to provide care to the
patient.
The rise of social media in the world has affected many different aspects of our lives as the use of computers, cell phones, and tablets has changed the way we communicate with others. Social medial provides a wide a variety and features that can be used to communicate from social networking, professional networking, media sharing sites, and as well blogs. Many people and organizations use Face book, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and snapchat to communicate with one another or promote themselves or their products. As a results there has been some changes to how we shop, dine, and travel. Social media impact on the health care industry is evident as well3. Participation in social media by health care professionals has increased as many healthcare organizations has been using social media to communicate, share information, engage and educate the public to promote health behavior, and promote patient care in their communities.
There are many advantages for healthcare professionals to utilize social media for their professional development, like the ability to network, communicate with the community, find job opportunities, and the ability to do continuing education online. As the social media among healthcare professionals have increased, universities, hospitals, and other healthcare organizations are using social media to recruit, communicating with patients, patient education and care, promotion, patient access to public health programs, and increase academic library access and learning experiences. Studies have shown that this use of social media can greatly enhance the image and visibility of a medical center or hospital.4
As social media have changed our lives and how we deliver health care, there are some disadvantages that comes with the use of social media and how it affects healthcare professionals in general. Social media can present potential risk to both the patient and the healthcare provider, as with the use of social media can increase breaches of patient privacy, poor quality of information, and violation of code of ethics, that can lead to damage of professional image and legal issues. Health information found on social media can be at times hard to verify the author identity, and qualification since any user can upload information online. Even if the author is verified sometimes there is no way of validating or knowing whether the information was subject to quality control, like peer to peer review.
The main problem healthcare professionals face today is the posting of unprofessional content on social media that reflect poorly on themselves, the patient, their profession, and the healthcare organization they represent. Posting of unprofessional content such as patient information without reduction, negative comments about patients, sexual behavior, intoxicated pictures, and posting about violence behavior. Although some contents have nothing to do with patient care, they can put the profession and the healthcare professional in a poor spotlight that can end up being harmful to colleagues and the organization.
As many healthcare organization uses social media for communication, recruitment, and marketing with consumers, it is important for a healthcare organization to have rules in place that governs the use of social media in the organization and educate their employees on the proper use of social media. Educate the staff of inappropriate use such as violation of privacy rights, harassment, ramifications of inappropriate use, and making sure only designated staff have access to the organization social media and are well trained to the company code of conduct.