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Social Media Ethical Dilemmas

1259 Words6 Pages

We Can Do It, But Dare We
The emergence of a wide range of Web 2.0 technologies and platforms, including social media networking sites, has resulted in increased application of the internet in the creation and sharing of content. Smartphone applications and social media platforms are also used by health care professionals (Gagnon & Sabus, 2015). However, the relationship between a health care practitioner and a patient is founded on the ethical principles of confidentiality and privacy. Because of this, the use of smartphones and social networking sites by health care professionals raised ethical and legal issues and dilemmas that are related to the personal and professional boundaries and the trustworthiness, accountability and integrity of the health care provider (Moses, Chaitt & Jones, 2014). Cases of health care providers posting work-related photos on social media, Googling patients and tweeting political or personal opinions are associated with ethical and legal issues that nurses must consider (Gagnon & Sabus, 2015). Regardless …show more content…

This is because health care professionals are more likely to share personal data and images about patients on social media without consent when they have ready access to smartphone applications and social media platforms. This means that health care professionals may cause offense to their patients because of social media, which is against the ethical principle of non-maleficence (Gagnon & Sabus, 2015). Ethical issues in the use of social media and smartphones are mainly associated with health care practice because of the high level of sensitivity of medical or clinical information. This is unlike organizations in other industries, such as marketing, which share personal information without alarming consequences on privacy and

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