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Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media networks are great places to keep in touch with friends and family, meet new people and even find job opportunities. As a nurse, you may even have patients or colleagues who want to befriend you online — and you may worry about blurring the lines between your professional and personal life. Below are some tips for staying HIPAA-compliant on social media.
1. Come up with a personal social media policy, and stick to it. Decide who you’ll add as friends on various social media networks and make that policy clear if anyone asks. For example, you may decide not to add any patients as friends on Facebook to protect yourself from unsolicited medical questions or the risk of accidentally revealing patient information online. If a patient asks why you didn’t add her to your network, simply tell her, via email, that it’s your policy not to add patients as friends. You may have different policies on different social networks, but be consistent when you determine who to add to your network.
2. Never discuss patients’ health information on social media. You may be tempted to instant message a co-worker about a patient’s cancer diagnosis or vent about a particularly bad day in the NICU, but avoid discussing any patient-related information on social media. While posting X-rays or photos of charts on a Facebook wall obviously violates HIPAA regulations, even a seemingly harmless tweet can get you into trouble — and direct messages can always be forwarded or pasted elsewhere. Protect yourself and your patients by only discussing their cases in person or over the phone.
3. Don’t write negative comments about your facility or colleagues online. It may not violate HIPAA regulations to complain about your boss or the outdated equipment at the hospital where you work, but it can compromise your coworkers’ trust and might even cost you your job. Before you post anything on social media, ask whether it’s necessary, adds value and is positive. If it doesn’t meet those criteria, reconsider posting it.
4. Be cautious about posting in forums and groups. Forums are a great place to weigh in on conversations and get answers to questions you may have — but they can also be a place for nurses to vent about their jobs or complain about various travel nursing companies. If you decide to comment or start a conversation, be as civil as possible to the other participants and use discretion when posting about the company you work for. You’ll maintain your professional reputation and help other people in the group by answering their questions.
5. Remember that what you post on social media is permanent. Though you can delete posts, tweets and updates, there’s no guarantee that someone didn’t take a screenshot or read it before you could erase it. If you’re worried about posting something controversial or negative, don’t post it at all. It’s not worth offending your followers or risking your job.
Interested in learning more about travel nursing? Call us for more information at 800.866.0407 or view today’s job openings.
