In
class this week, we focused on maintaining professionalism when posting things
online that relate to our personal lives. It is understandable that all of us
use online media sources whether it may be Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr,
Instagram, and these are only a few of the many media networks being used. However,
it is a nurse’s duty to ensure that what he or she posts online remains appropriate and professional. Once
information is online, there is no way to really control who sees it. Even if
we delete something, there will always be a trace of it online. Our clients and colleagues are a part of
the public and if they wanted to they could look us up online. Depending on
what we post this may affect our relationships with them. In class on September
17th we were told by our instructor to look ourselves up online and
see what we found. To my surprise, I found no trace of myself. However, before
I post things online, I ask myself if this is negatively directed towards
someone or may be potentially used against me.
In
this weeks class, we also reviewed two case studies and had group discussions/debates
about them. The first one consisted of a new nursing student who had joined a
medical unit that I as a nurse am working in. This student is using her phone
during her care with patients. She reports using it to transfer patient
information from her phone onto paper. She also uses it to tweet interesting
situations that happen which her many followers can read. The hospital does not
allow using devices while in practice. When reflecting on this particular
scenario, I as a nurse would respond to this situation by first asking the
student if he or she knew about the hospitals policy regarding cellular phone
devices. The document Professional Conduct:
Professional Misconduct (2013) emphasizes that “documentation must be
accurate and complete, in accordance with the standards of the profession and
with documentation requirements and practices of the particular facility” (College
of Nurses of Ontario, p.9). Since the facility she is working in, does not
allow devices, I would then advise the student to delete each post she made on
Twitter and to delete her patient health information history on her phone. If
by chance her phone had gotten stolen or lost, this would breach the client’s
privacy and security. All clients have a right to ensure their documentation is
kept private and seen only by health care professionals.
The second case study described a
scenario where I as a nurse am working in a clinic that serves vulnerable women
and there is a male client who attends this clinic with convictions of rape and
abuse against women. When another nurse points him out, I decide to Google
search his name and find the allegations against him to be true. The main
question of this study was to decide if this nurse breached any patient privacy
by doing a Google search on him. For this debate I was on the side that agrees
that this nurse should have searched his name. As stated by the Canadian
Patient Safety Institute (2008), “communication issues related to patient
safety fall into two main categories: preventing adverse events and
responding
to adverse events” (p.13). This nurse was trying to prevent harm
from occurring to her clients by searching the claims made about this man. If
proven from reliable sources online that it is true, this nurse should take
action by reporting the issue to someone of higher authority. Being faced in
the situation of a sexual predator, it would be a natural instinct to protect
yourself as well as your duty to clients to ensure no harm comes to them. I am
aware that all clients deserve an equal right to health care. I want to stress
that regardless of the background criminal check being done for this man, care
for him should continue until there is viable reason to end and to remove him
from the clinic.
If you were in this situation, would you
have done the same? Would you have taken action if you were worried about your
safety?
When I was trying to look up a definition
for what informatics is, I stumbled upon this video on YouTube. This short
video clip explains what nursing informatics is and how it can benefit nurses
in their practice. It also provides one example of a problem nurses may face
today: paper charting. Through informatics, the students in this video find a
solution to better our practice, ensuring documentation is quicker, therefore
allowing more interaction time with our clients. If you’re uncertain about what
informatics is, check out this video, it’ll only take a few minutes!
References
College of Nurses of Ontario. (2013).Reference document:
Professional conduct professional
misconduct.
Retrieved from http://www.cno.org/Global/docs/ih/42007_misconduct.pdf
Canadian Patient Safety
Institute, (2008). The Safety
Competencies, Enhancing Patient Safety Across
the Health Professions. Retrieved
from http://www.patientsafetyinstitute.ca/English/toolsResources/safetyCompetencies/Documents/Safety%20Competencies.pdf
