Imagine standing in line at a local grocery store and glancing over towards the magazine rack to discover that your co-worker’s face along with photos of the lead singer, Jerod from the band Blue Lizards, is on the cover of the Gossip Gazette. You quickly grab the tabloid and flip through the pages to figure out what information you can find in the story. To your surprise, you read that your colleague is suspected of violating HIPAA and legal actions are underway against the hospital that you work at. How could this be? This is the very same co-worker who you consider trustworthy, dependable, and have worked side by side with for several years. Unfortunately, the ER nurse allowed her star-struck nature to get the best of her and clearly violated
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The Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that out of 661,000 United States physicians, approximately 72% use smartphones during their practice (Wyatt & Krauskopf, 2012). Convenience is a major benefit to using a smartphone. Health care professionals are able to stay up to date on the latest medical information, refer to drug references and calculators, access medical applications, and reference guides, personal health, and lifestyle applications used for patient education (Wyatt & Krauskopf, 2012). There is no doubt that smartphones have become a central component to the way nurses and health care professionals fulfill tasks and provide patient care. Therefore, it is imperative that health care personnel use these devices responsibly in order to prevent compromising the quality of patient care and …show more content…
With the amount of information posted on the Internet it is almost impossible at times to decipher what medical information is accurate and what is not. Questions are also raised about the amount of medical advice a provider can give over an online source to an individual that is not their regular patient. Issues regarding licensure, liability, and exchange of information should also be considered when using social media as a tool for medical advice (Hartzband, 2014). Another issue to consider is that information posted online is open to others to see and pass judgment. A study conducted of 454 pharmacy directors concluded that program directors used social media as method of determining potential candidacy (Spector & Kappel, 2012). Decisions regarding residencies were considered based on questionable social media posts and photos that revealed unprofessional behavior of
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that out of 661,000 United States physicians, approximately 72% use smartphones during their practice (Wyatt & Krauskopf, 2012). Convenience is a major benefit to using a smartphone. Health care professionals are able to stay up to date on the latest medical information, refer to drug references and calculators, access medical applications, and reference guides, personal health, and lifestyle applications used for patient education (Wyatt & Krauskopf, 2012). There is no doubt that smartphones have become a central component to the way nurses and health care professionals fulfill tasks and provide patient care. Therefore, it is imperative that health care personnel use these devices responsibly in order to prevent compromising the quality of patient care and …show more content…
With the amount of information posted on the Internet it is almost impossible at times to decipher what medical information is accurate and what is not. Questions are also raised about the amount of medical advice a provider can give over an online source to an individual that is not their regular patient. Issues regarding licensure, liability, and exchange of information should also be considered when using social media as a tool for medical advice (Hartzband, 2014). Another issue to consider is that information posted online is open to others to see and pass judgment. A study conducted of 454 pharmacy directors concluded that program directors used social media as method of determining potential candidacy (Spector & Kappel, 2012). Decisions regarding residencies were considered based on questionable social media posts and photos that revealed unprofessional behavior of