Free Essay. Training Healthcare Workers on Appropriate Social Media Representation

Healthcare workers should be trained on how to best leverage social media to enhance patient safety. Social media can be a useful tool for sharing scientific research information about treatment and patient care that can improve patient safety (Pershad et al., 2018). Propagation of wrong medical information on media platforms poses a danger to patient safety. In a review article by Pershad et al. (2018), the need for extended openness and accessibility regarding patient information to improve health outcomes has been amplified. The review article analyses Twitter, which is one of the most used social media platforms for healthcare information. Despite the ethical challenges that social mediums such as Twitter pose to patients i.e., misinformation and source credibility issues, proper education to healthcare providers on the appropriate usage of the mediums can help improve patient care and thus maximize patient safety (Pershad et al., 2018). For instance, sharing credible and researched information about a specific type of medication can help guide treatment and care for patients by reducing adverse drug effects and, consequently, enhancing the safety of the patients. Patients can also gain useful information from credible sources and get to understand their medical conditions and treatment better, thus minimizing associated risk factors and improving safety (Pershad et al., 2018).

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Current Guidelines That Relate To the Solution

Common standards on medical data/information support the effective integration of new scientific knowledge into the clinical decision-making process to improve patient health outcomes. For instance, data for a novel medication contraindication should be treated with urgency. There is a need to use a faster medium of communication, which is currently social media. Additionally, the medical practice emphasizes the confidentiality of all health information of a patient. Therefore, teaching healthcare personnel how to uphold the privacy of their patients’ data is a step in the right direction.

Definition and Explanation of How the Intervention Will Result In Enhanced Patient Safety

Social media training of healthcare providers (HCPs) entails the provision of clear guidelines on how they (HCPs) can use social media platforms to ensure that they impact positively on patient safety. Since social media has the potential to compromise patient safety, the nurses and other staff should be educated on ways to use social media to spread credible information that can ‘heal’ (Pershad et al., 2018). Through the sharing of trustworthy information on social media platforms, medical personnel can make medical information more accessible to patients and other medical staff (Pershad et al., 2018). More accessibility will mean that the patients understand the treatment process better, thus enhancing their safety.

References

Pershad, Y., Hangge, P. T., Albadawi, H., & Oklu, R. (2018). Social medicine: Twitter in healthcare. Journal of clinical medicine, 7(6), 121.