NursesAndSocialMediaI really enjoy nursing students – at all levels of nursing education. I love helping them formally via precepting them as well as informally helping them through mentoring, etc. Nursetopia has many popular posts among nursing students, and I can often tell the season for nursing papers by the number of hits to my posts about free, full-text nursing journal articles (here and over here and even here). It makes me smile.

A nursing student contacted me recently for help with a “trends in nursing” kind of class. She bravely chose the topic of social media use within the nursing profession. I say “bravely” because the peer-reviewed evidence of the topic in the nursing literature is scarce with 49 PubMed articles from a “nursing, social media” search. And not even all of those are related to nurses’ actually use of social media. Yikes. Kudos, though, to this student for developing this knowledge within herself and passing it on to others. My mind leaps at the thoughts of how beneficial this learning will be in her nursing practice. I’m providing my answers to her questions below this week, and I thought I’d let her see the real-life nursing practice implications and benefits of social media through her very own questions, leveraging my existing social media networks for her and allowing nurses from all over the world to weigh-in on her questions. Oh, yeah…fun stuff!!

So, take a peek at the questions below, and leave a comment by Sunday, January 27, 2013, to answer one or all of them. I know many nurses within the blogosphere and other social networks have already ruminated on this topic. If you’re on of those, leave a URL in the comments directing the nursing student (and all other nurses and nursing students who will read this in the future) to your already existing thoughts on social media use within the nursing profession. And, if you’re not a nurse but still work in the healthcare profession, yes, you jump in, too! As always, thanks for contributing to the growth of one of our own!

1. How is your role related to the use of social media in the healthcare field?
2. Have you or your organization instituted any changes regarding the use of social media – including education, information sharing, or restrictions?
3. How did you become involved with the aspect of healthcare social media usage?
4. How do you feel that healthcare policies and current changes impact social media usage?
5. How do you think nursing promotes safety in social media?
6. Do you feel that culture, population, or evolving technology impact the use of social media by healthcare professionals and businesses?
7. The Institute of Medicine (IOM), The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health report was generated by an 18-member committee including health experts from healthcare organizations, businesses, and academic settings. The report includes solutions to improve patient care through changes in nursing. Some of their recommendations are that nurses should achieve higher levels of education and training through an improved education system that promotes seamless academic progression and to ensure that nurses engage in lifelong learning. What are your thoughts on these recommendations? Do you think social media and the internet support the achievement of these recommendations?