The use of social media in healthcare settings has brought new light to the work, camaraderie, and the way in which nurses relieve stress in the workplace. Videos of nurses, doctors, and healthcare workers are going viral for Tik Tok challenges, coordinated dance moves, and the celebrations that healthcare workers are having for COVID patients when they are being discharged. Despite the darkness that surrounds the work of caring for patients during a pandemic, many healthcare workers have used social media as a way to cope.
Frontline workers are being called heroes by their friends, family, and even strangers. Frontline staff are being interviewed on daytime television shows and sharing their experiences about the daily challenges they are facing personally and professionally with people who are listening and taking note of those previously hidden challenges. Nurses now have a unique opportunity to shape how the world sees the profession and the vital role of nurses as a member of the multidisciplinary patient care team.
So, if social media has shined such a positive light onto the profession then why would anyone ever question the use of social media in healthcare? The biggest reason is HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). HIPAA is a law that was passed in 1996 to modernize the flow of healthcare data, to regulate some aspects of health insurance, and to protect personally identifiable health information. HIPAA prohibits healthcare providers, organizations, and affiliates from sharing a patient’s identity, location, diagnosis, or any other type of personal health information that could be shared and possibly identify the patient. This could happen when a well-intentioned Nurse shares a video of a patient in the hospital without written permission from the patient and authorized permission from their organization to post onto their personal social media pages. There also have been incidents in which nurses have snapped pictures of themselves and unknowingly shown their workstation screen, accidentally sharing a patient’s personal health information for the world to see. These types of breaches are taken seriously and governed by federal and state law. Violations of HIPAA could lead to fines ranging from $100 to $50,000 per violation or jail time if a Nurse is found personally liable.
One of the other reasons that social media should be carefully used in the healthcare setting is to ensure that the integrity of the nursing profession is maintained. Nurses have ranked as the most honest profession 18 years in a row according to the most recent Gallup poll and the World Health Assembly has designated 2020 as The Year of the Nurse and Midwife. Nurses have struggled for many years to gain the level of respect that leaders within the profession feel are deserved. Nurses are the ones that notice the small changes that are critical to saving a patient’s life. Nurses hold patient’s hands in their last moments and dry the tears of their grieving families as they deal with the weight of a painful loss. This pandemic has given light to all that nurses do and more importantly the public’s image has shifted to another level of respect that years of work and public relations could not have accomplished on its own.
Social media is an important and widely used tool that we know will be used in various ways personally and professionally. The advantages and disadvantages of the use of social media in the healthcare setting should not be seen as reasons why it should or should not be used, but as a precaution to those nurses who do use social media in the healthcare setting. This is an evolving area of healthcare that has no clear cut rules but the use of social media in healthcare should be self- managed with a priority protect yourself, the organization you work for, and the profession as a whole.
I spoke more about this subject on a recent IGTV post that you can watch and comment on here.
About the author: Irnise Fennell Williams, Esq., is a Registered Nurse and attorney barred in Maryland and based in New York who empowers her community through education, advocacy, and pursuing justice for victims of medical malpractice and personal injury claims. Her current focus is working to expose the biases in the healthcare system that lead to the preventable loss of Black mothers and Black babies. She can be reached by email at irnise@iwilliamslaw.com.