Impacts of Social Media on Nursing Practice.

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 Impacts of Social Media on Nursing Practice.

Social media and nursing practice brings the idea of changing the balance between the social

and technical aspects of work. Modern communication methods have substantially changed how people

interact with each other. Nursing as an occupation has to be flexible with these changes to remain

relevant to the community. In the 1960s, researchers came up with a sociotechnical theory that stated

workers would be motivated and productive if there would have been a good balance between the

social and technical aspects of their work (Collegian, 2014). Modern day technology is reducing the

boundaries between social and technical, hence transforming human contact and communication into a

multi-method process. For instance, Australians are focused on making social media technology to be

more efficient, creative and connected. Their nurses should also accept changes in technology to exploit

the professional opportunities provided by social media. This article visualizes a world where nurses

view social media as a platform for assessing, implementing and evaluating care ( E Casella, J mills,

2014).

While looking at the positive impacts of social media on nursing practice, it is clear that its use

can have a significant impact on nurses’ health at the individual level and at their workplace. Nurses can

use a range of social media platforms to promote their personal goals. According to Ferguson (2013),

nurses can step forward and be leaders in using social media where they can retrieve information for

their workplace or for themselves, connect with colleagues, share information about best practices and

promote health through personal and professional means.

Social media is an important part of communication, especially for the millennial generation.

People of all ages are using it to obtain news worldwide which means that nurses will be attending to

patients connected via social media. Since nurses have a holistic role to attend to patients, they must

connect with patients involving continual evolution in developing knowledge and skills through having

encounters with patients (Hines, 2009).

 Similarly, social media also has some negative impacts on nursing practices which include;

nursing programs not offering enough technological training to efficiently meet the study needs, desires

or the Technologies Informatics Guiding Education Reform (TIGER) competencies ( McDowell & Xiping,

2007). Barriers may also restrict the use of social media tools. Some barriers examples include lack of

knowledge and skills in technological use, the rapid nature of technology change, many demands and

distractions from outside or misuse of mistakes within social media (Schmitt & Lily, in press).

According to NCSBN (2011), social media risks patients and students privacy, with a larger reach

and documentable evidence. However, many non-compliances are non-intentional and could be solved

by a clear education for both students and faculty, prior to being used, giving a chance for mistakes to

be made as it is done in physical clinical environments, and faculty development so as to have a know-

how and education mechanisms for safe use of social media.

The disadvantage of using social media in nurse education is because, there has been an

increasingly reported rate of usage of social media among students and faculty. Use of public platforms

for personal benefits can have professional negative effects if not used appropriately with both personal

and academic use. (Valda, Natalie, 2017).

Communicating with patients on social media can at times go beyond professional-patient

boundaries, risking patients confidentiality, exposing patients to wrong information from physicians and

bringing about therapeutic relationships. Such closeness can be unhealthy for both practitioners and

patients putting pressure on the professional boundaries, resulting to differences of opinions among

staff as to where the right boundaries lie ( Christine, Melinda, 2012).

Similarly, oncologists may find out personal information concerning a patient that places him/

her in a very awkward situation. In addition to that, information learned by either the provider or the

patient via social media can bring about ethical tensions.

 Nurses can optimize social media to improve patient care. Many social media platforms are

readily available for health care workers, including blogs, microblogs, wikis, media-sharing sites, and

virtual reality and gaming environments. These tools can be used to improve and advance professional

networking and education, and public health programs. However, these tools expose patients and

health care professionals to distribution of poor quality information, destroying the professional image,

violating patients privacy rights and personal-professional boundaries and licensing. Many health care

organizations however, have issued guidelines to prevent these risks (Ventola, 2014).

Earlier on, teens with asthma and 18 parent-caregivers engaged in semi structured in-depth

interviews to come up with mechanisms for improving asthma self-management and suggested

characteristics for coming up with a digital media tool to support such efforts. They identified physician

recommended strategies for asthma management as well as currently employed strategies. They

thought a possible media solution would be a positive step but spelled out specific design requirements

for such a solution to have utility and grow. Most participants considered mobile platforms to be the

most effective way to improve asthma management (Panzera, 2013).

Use of mobile devices, social media and crowdsourcing as digital strategies to improve

cardiovascular care was also considered to help patients. Building all these tools didn’t actually mean

that the approaches would not be adopted and be effective in improving patient health and health

systems. The type of data used across digital media also varies, and it is important to know how this

information would be made better, organized and optimized for collection and analysis.

In conclusion, social media has made communication easier, allowing the nursing profession to

use it across all domains of practice, enabling nurses to connect with colleagues and share information.

The risks that come with dealing with social media can be mitigated through continuous practice.
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