McNickle (2012)’s article addresses the five issues associated with social media as applied to healthcare service delivery. The article, however, acknowledges social media as a key player in advancing patient engagement, communication, and marketing in healthcare. The channel is increasingly useable with the growth of mainstream platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (McNickle, 2012).
Nonetheless, there are issues that arise with increased utilization of social media platforms in healthcare. McNickle (2012)’s five issues include privacy, content ownership, IP infringements, unauthorized access, and regulatory compliance. The author notes that, unaddressed, these issues could result in serious legal ramifications. Therefore, there is a need for healthcare providers to comply with local and federal laws that regulate and guide on the use of social media in service delivery (McNickle, 2012).
The Bailey (2016) video is part of a privacy and security forum that features MIT’s Mohit Tiwari. Tiwari also agrees that the internet lacks the appropriate safety required to protect patients and organizations from all forms of data vulnerability. The speaker mentions application security, user error and cyber-attacks as issues evident in online healthcare data management (Bailey, 2016).
I agree with both resources on the costs and benefits of integrating information systems in healthcare. In essence, technology has played a vital role in advancing health systems. Currently, there is ease of peer-to-peer access to PHI to enhance evidence based practice. Health care facilities, for instance, use EHRs and EMRs to share information on treatment histories to mitigate malpractice.
However, it would be hard to ignore the possible issues that arise from the use of such networking activities. Some of the issues as identified include content ownership and privacy. Ideally, hospitals could pride themselves as the exclusive owners of patient information. This issue could lead to an ownership brawl should there be future claim from the patient to control access of information. Also, privacy issues come from the facility’s use of a system prone to cyber-attacks. Such events would jeopardize their patient’s privacy and result in data theft (McNickle, 2012).
References
Bailey, E. (2016, May 28). Video: Mohit Tiwari on encryption technology and protecting data. Retrieved from Healthcare IT News : http://www.healthcareitnews.com/video/mohit-tiwari-encryption-technology-and-protecting-data
McNickle, M. (2012). 5 keys to the legal issues of social media in healthcare. Retrieved from Healthcare IT News : http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/5-keys-legal-issues-social-media?single-page=true
