• Subject Name : Nursing

Social Media: A Platform to Explore Professionalism

Discussion Post on Professional Behaviour 

Bryan is a new nursing graduate, who is workings as a full-time professional at the busy medical unit in Conestoga General Hospital. He is passionate, enthusiastic, and optimistic toward his professional career. He has developed a positive professional identity among his colleagues and seniors, and well respected by his surrounded nurses. Bryan is eager to create an account on social media to share his life experience. Rather than this, he is also eager to know more about social media and its implications for professional development. Social media plays a Vitol role in transforming the lives of people through social networking sites and blogs where people can connect (Siddiqui & Singh, 2016). It offers many opportunities for the health care centre as it allows the organization to build connections with patients, share discoveries and successful activities, and develop reliability in the market. Bryan must adapt the social media guidelines to create a respectful, authenticate, constructive, and online persona while dealing or posting anything on the media.

Bryan must consider brand safety, brand respect, transparency, diligence, engagements, honesty, and privacy before making any comment on social media. These factors help one in understanding the scenario with respect to patient, organization, colleagues, and friends (Jones, et al, 2015). Social media help Bryan to connect with a new healthcare professional that are distant apart and facilitating a conversation about health care advances, current best practices, and other innovative treatment available. However, Bryan needs to follow the rules, regulations guidelines as forth by the government organization to avoid unpleasant consequences. The social media act as a platform for the development of professionalism. It will help Bryan to interact with his clients, patients, and other staff members to address any issue any time by logging in. It will provide potential benefits to both Bryan and the nursing community in relation to their professional values, beliefs, and work. Creating an account on social media would be interesting and adventurous for Bryan as it may help in to learn and explore new thing on nursing, clinical practices, and patient relationship. But, while working with social media, he has to take care of his duties and his responsibilities with respect to media guidelines, support, rules and regulations.

Introduction to Professional Behaviour 

Professional behaviour is a form of etiquette, which needs to follow the practice in the workplace, or any other place where the profession is related. Many organization or institution maintains a formal code of professional conduct that may help in maintaining professionalism and ethical behaviour. Many communities works and community development involved in the engagement of their business through networking sites such as Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, and integral (Siddiqui& Singh, 2016).Social media blurs up the line between professional and professional lives, the individual perspective of social media determine personal, professional, and brand exposure. For the benefit and proper functioning of an organization, sometimes professionals create an account on social media. The essay will describe how social media can be used to attain professional values and beliefs. It will demonstrate the key factors, which need to adopt by the nurse or midwifery so that; they can use social media responsibly and professionally.

Social media are the interactive system or mobile generated technologies that help one to facilitate information sharing. Social media and healthcare have become the powerful combination in the healthcare system, as around up to date, 99% of older adults have used social media to seek and share the information (Hootsuite, 2020). Social media plays a Vitol role in transforming the lives of people through social networking sites and blogs where people can connect. Social media is a new and novel platform of marketing for businesses, brands, organizations, and communities. The platform helps in creating the news, make friends, connect with society, and make followers (Siddiqui & Singh, 2016). These activities help in enhancing the organization’s performance in a way to accomplish business objectives, increasing sales, and developing networks with other organizations.

Social media can be of various forms such as Face book, LinkedIn, Interest, Integra, and Twitter. Social media usage has a positive as well as a negative influence on the user, organization or business. The negative influence is due to wrong interpretation of the social media, wrong usage of social media, and false representation of information, and wrong interpretation or meaning of information (Siddiqui& Singh, 2016). According to Pourkani, Abdipour, Baher and Moslehpu (2019), social media is a hybrid element of promotion mix as it traditionally helps firm to contact their customer, and indirectly customers can connect. Moreover, the adoption of this platform is also a good and valued approach like the one social medium as these sites comply with technology, legal, culture, and government. Thee trustworthiness help in increasing the number of new customers and enhance the image of healthcare organization (Jones, et al, 2015).

Social media has become an integral part of many healthcare organizations in view of marketing, communicating, social networking, and advertising. It offers many opportunities for the health care centre as it allows the organization to build connections with patients, share discoveries and successful activities, and develop reliability in the market. Through social media platforms, the organization able to share relevant and effective health alerts, patient feedback, medical association suggestions, encourage their health activities.

For the professional business or any professional activity, one needs to consider the code of conduct while dealing with social media. The degree of ambiguity needs to consider ethically when one deals with social media. The code of conduct based on four pillars – respect, transparency, integrity, and honesty. The employee working in a healthcare organization should always act in a constructive, professional, and etiquette manner on social media. The healthcare professional should use sound and professional judgment before posting anything on the media. The medical professionals deal with the health, lives, and wellbeing of people through social media, although were trusted and reference by the public. Engagement with patients through social media can help in building trust, good doctor-patient relationships, and enhance the health of patients through monitoring.

The nursing and midwifery council has developed professional standards of practice and professional behaviour. The code developed by the regulatory agency based on four themes, which are prioritizing people; effective clinical practices; implementing and preserving safety; and promoting trust and professionalism (NMBA, 2019). According to Hao and Gao (2017), social media provide a wholesome benefit to the healthcare system through different modes. Social media provide the nurses, practitioners, and midwifery with the application to share health information, public communication, health practice debate shows, and help in promoting primary health care behaviours (Gagon & Sabus, 2015). Social media also provide opportunities to the healthcare profession to dialogue with colleagues, peers, and their patients with the latest technology, latest health development plans, and available healthcare opportunities (Hao & Gao, 2017).

The social media can act as a platform in enhancing providing clinical education among clinical practitioners or the nurses. It provides an efficient and easy communication base for delivering professional training, medical treatments, and clinical training. For instance, according to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, registered nurses gain 20 continuous professional points to maintain their register (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, 2016a).

Case Study on Professional Behaviour 

Bryan is eager to post his photos, life experiences, and thoughts, or believes on social networks. The practice of sharing personnel information on social media is a good practice, but it should comply with national laws, policies, and terms and conditions. Exploring and using social media is not bad, however, it provides a platform for socially interacting with friends, society, and communities. It also provides a characteristic feature of learning new things and exploring new and innovative ideas.

Bryan must use communication capabilities to improve his clinical education and clinical based information. He also collaborates and forms a professional group to carry out his research work and healthcare treatments in different parts of the world. Social media provide enormous advantages to the healthcare profession and organization, which can see from the above discussion. However, Bryan must understand the limits of appropriates use of social media and understand the confidentiality, policies, and laws related to social media usage. Bryan must follow nursing guidelines and laws that must keep in mind while dealing with social media and patients. He should not breach the confidentiality and privacy of patient information during, post the treatment. Bryan should share the confidential information only with the patient’s consent. He must also be knowledgeable about the potential consequences of inappropriate use of social and other electronic media. He must aware of unprofessional conduct; unethical conduct; patient record management; confidentiality breach; and revealing privileged communication (NSCBN, n.d.). The ICN (International Council of Nurses) determines the benefits of social media along with the guidance for the betterment and effective nursing implementation (ICN, n.d.). Considering ICN, Bryan must follow the following things:

  • First, educate himself about the opportunities in the use of social media to enhance knowledge; informing practice; health care teaching; and risks associated with social media
  • He must adhere to legal; institutional; organizational; regulatory guidelines and codes of conduct with respect patient information, organization privacy, data management, and other terms and conditions
  • Bryan must keep his personnel and professional use of social media separate as it may breach the confidentiality of the organisation as well as patient
  • Bryan must refrain the boundaries of nurse-patient relationships and employee-organization relationship to avoid the breaching of formal relationships
  • Bryan should avoid posting defamatory or offensive comments about their colleagues, his medical organization, and his patients. As these may create a sense of disturbance in relationships and may deteriorate one’s feelings or personality.

Bryan must undergo proper training before creating a professional account on social media. Demiray, 2019 opined that training is an effective approach in evaluating the patient how to interact professionally through social media. Nursing requires live training with a self- development approach that helps in building trust, professionalism, and professional identity among registered nurses. The training should organize regularly that must in compliance with ethical issues, policies, and terms with respect to social media (Demiray, 2019).

Bryan must possess and learn e-professionalism to develop social media-based professional characteristics. E-professionalism is a new form of professionalism that contributes toward the attitude and behaviours, which reflect traditional professionalism through digital media manifestation (Cope, 2019). E-professionalism encompasses the development of professional attitude, professional behaviour, and professional identity in the online environment of social media. Bryan must follow the rules and regulations mentioned by the Nursing and Midwifery Board (2019). According to the board, every nurse should work on social media in compliance with the following points:

  • Confidentiality and privacy obligations
  • Professional boundaries in terms of patient-centric; organization; and colleagues
  • Any individual must not frame false, deceptive, and misleading information that is back without acceptable evidence.

Bryan must use social media with all his aspects of capability, professional conduct, behaviour, and sound knowledge of professional obligations. He should take care while using on-site applications, social media sites in terms that he should not advertently post or communicating publically any important or confidential information. He must take care of professionalism, patient confidentiality, public health messages, and any false representation of healthcare organization advertisements. The nursing organization, management, institute administration, and healthcare policymakers must corporate Bryan in preparing the common structure in relation to social media do’s or don’ts. Ethical, legal, organization awareness regarding social media should promote and adapted among the registered nurses.

These may help in reducing the conflict among the user and healthcare organization or patient. Bryan must understand the importance of usage of social media professionally and he must adopt all the laws governing social media for the safety of patients and healthcare organizations. Bryan must use social media as a positive platform where he can learn new things. He must share or exchange ideas with other professionals, management, patients, or other healthcare organizations. Pizzuti et al. (2020) state that social media in healthcare helps in maintaining professional networking, professional education, patient care, public health program implementation, organization promotion, and patient education. With this concept of knowledge, Bryan must use social media as a platform to explore learning.

Conclusion on Professional Behaviour 

From the above discussion, it can conclude that social networking is the art of managing things and implementing health online. The positivity of social networking can implement through the adoption of professional identity, regulatory guidance, and balancing professional etiquettes and legalities. This helps in navigating the complexities of boundaries between professional and personnel values. Bryan with the incorporation of valuable professional behaviour can promote patient health along with organization welfare. Thus, it is necessary for registered nurses, midwifery, or health care practitioner to familiarize themselves with the guidelines, government policies, government laws, that help them maintain social media usage.

Reference for Professional Behaviour 

Cope, V. (2019). Social media, E-professionalism and the image of nursing: How one nurse can reach many! 5th Annual Nursing Conference, 1-5. Retrieved from: http://dl4.globalstf.org/wp-content/uploads/wpsc/downloadables/WNC_Proceedings_Paper_29.pdf

Demiray, A. et al. (2019). Social media use and ethics violations: Nurses response to hypothetical cases. International Councils of Nurses, 67, 1-9.

Gagnon, K., & Sabus, C. (2015). Professionalism in a digital age: opportunities and considerations for using social media in health care. Phys Ther, 95(3),406-414.

Hao, J., & Gao, B. (2017). Advantages and disadvantages for nurses of using social media. Journal of Primary Health Care and General Practice, 1, 1-3.

International Council of Nurses. (n.d.). Nurses and social media. Retrieved from https://www.icn.ch/sites/default/files/inline-files/E10a_Nurses_Social_Media.pdf

Jones, N., Borgman, R., &Ulusoy, E. (2015). Impact of social media on small businesses. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 22(4), 611–632.

NSCBN. (n.d.). A nurse’s guide to use of social media. Retrieved from chttps://www.ncsbn.org/ncsbn_socialmedia.pdf

Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia. (2016). Registered standard: continuing professional development. Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia.

Nursing and Midwifery Board. (2019). Social media: How to meet your obligations under the National Law. Retrieved from https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements/Codes-Guidelines/Social-media-guidance.aspx

Pizzuti, A. et al (2020). Healthcare practitioners’ views of social media as an educational resource. PlosOne, 1-16.

Siddiqui, S., & Singh, T. (2016). Social media its impact with positive and negative aspects. International Journal of Computer Applications Technology and Research, 5, 71—75.

Remember, at the center of any academic work, lies clarity and evidence. Should you need further assistance, do look up to our Nursing Assignment Help

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