Social Media Missteps Could Put Your Nursing License at Risk

Author(s): Melanie L. Balestra, NP, Esq

Learn the rules and what to practice if you lot make a mistake.

Takeaways:

• For nurses, social media use has daily applications in their personal and professional lives, facilitating conversations with colleagues about best practices and advancing healthcare.
• Inappropriate use of social media can create legal problems for nurses, including task termination, malpractice claims, and disciplinary action from boards of nursing (BON), which could negatively impact their nursing license and career.

By Melanie L. Balestra, NP, Esq

Without a doubt, social media has become an integral part of mod life. Today, seven in 10 Americans utilise social media to go news, connect with others, and share data. Facebook leads the way with more than than two billion users worldwide, followed by other popular platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. For nurses, social media use has daily applications in their personal and professional lives, facilitating conversations with colleagues about best practices and advancing healthcare.

Although social media offers many benefits, inappropriate use can create legal problems for nurses, including job termination, malpractice claims, and disciplinary action from boards of nursing (BON), which could nega­tively impact their nursing license and career.

What to avoid when posting

Recall that professional person standards are the aforementioned online as in any other circumstance. And although y'all should approach all social media posts with caution, several high-risk areas deserve closer examination.

Breaches of patient privacy and confidentiality

Whether intentional or inadvertent, social media posts that breach patient privacy and confidentially are the near egregious. They include patient photos, negative comments about patients, or details that might place them, the healthcare setting, or specific departments. Even when posted with the best intentions, such every bit trying to get professional advice from colleagues about patient care, these posts are discoverable and can lead to legal bug, with potential fines and jail time for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) violations, termination or other subject from your employer, activeness taken against your license by a BON, civil litigation, or professional liability claims.

Co-ordinate to the 2015 nurse professional person liability exposures claim report update from the Nurses Service Organization, examples of civil litigation and airtight claims in connection with inappropriate electronic and social media use include:

• An RN who took a picture of a man getting an electrocardiogram and posted it on Facebook.
• An RN who sent text messages to another nurse and medico describing a sick child and his female parent in an unfavorable light.
• Staff members at a long-term-care facility who videotaped and photographed a certified nursing assistant colleague who was in labor. They allegedly mocked the adult female, posting photos, including of her vaginal area, on diverse social media sites.

Unprofessional beliefs

A 2d high-risk expanse are posts that could be considered unprofessional or reflect unethical conduct—annihilation divers equally unbecoming of the nursing profession. For example, negative comments near your workplace, complaints about coworkers and employers, or threatening or harassing comments autumn into this category.

The highly publicized firing in 2013 of an emergency department nurse at New York–Presbyterian Hospital demonstrates the risks continued with posting workplace photos. The nurse shared a photograph on Instagram depicting an empty trauma room where a patient had been treated subsequently getting hit by a subway train. Although the post didn't violate HIPAA rules or the hospital's social media policy, she was terminated for being insensitive.

Posts almost your personal life also tin negatively impact your professional life. Posting photos or comments about alcohol or drug employ, domestic violence (fifty-fifty comments near arguing with a spouse) and use of profanity, or sexually explicit or racially derogatory comments could lead to charges of unprofessional behavior past a BON. And keep in mind that complaints tin come from anywhere, including employers and coworkers, family and friends, and intimate partners, and then the privacy setting on the social media platform won't protect yous.

Court rulings accept supported disciplinary actions past BONs against nurses for unprofessional behavior in their personal lives. A key example is the 2012 decision by the California Supreme Court, which left intact an appellate ruling (Sulla v Board of Registered Nursing) that allowed a state lath to bailiwick a nurse who was defenseless driving drunk, fifty-fifty though his arrest had nil to do with his task. The BON placed the nurse on 3 years' probation afterwards his abort. The appeals court ruled that state laws authorize disciplinary action against a nurse who uses alcohol, on or off the job, in a manner that endangers others. The result is that nurses in California who are bedevilled of driving under the influence will have their nursing license suspended by the BON. This has clear implications for social media posting about alcohol utilize (or any loftier-hazard topic) in your personal life. (See How to avoid social media pitfalls.)

If you hear from the BON

If you receive a letter from the BON about an investigation, don't represent yourself. Rent an attorney who specializes in authoritative law and procedure—ideally i who'south familiar with your state BON. Decisions virtually a complaint can have from several months to more a year, and outcomes tin range from case dismissal for lack of merit or insufficient evidence to referral to the state's attorney full general role for prosecution. If no settlement is reached, you and your attorney volition debate the case at a hearing with potential outcomes that include public admonition/reprimand, restriction, probation, suspension, or revocation of your nursing license.

Other serious repercussions are possible. Decisions fabricated by BONs are communicated via Nursys.com, a national database for verification of nurse licensure, discipline, and do privilege administered by the National Quango of Country Boards of Nursing. If disciplined, y'all also could receive a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice restricting your ability to work in any facility that receives reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid. In add-on, disciplinary activity in one land may bear upon your license in some other. After you've been disciplined, each country in which you concord a license tin review or open up the case.

To protect yourself, carry your ain malpractice/disciplinary insurance (don't rely on the insurance carrier for your hospital or private practice). This is peculiarly important with the anticipated increase in medical professional liability claims associated with social media use.

Think twice

Social media is a great way to connect personally and professionally. But remember that online posts alive forever and that social media misfires could negatively touch your license and ability to practise. To protect yourself, retrieve twice earlier yous post content that could be judged every bit unprofessional.

Melanie L. Balestra is nurse practitioner and has her own police function in Irvine and Newport Beach, California. She focuses on legal and business organisation issues that affect physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, and other healthcare providers and represents them before their respective boards.

Selected references

Brous E. How to avoid the pitfalls of social media. Am Nurse Today. 2013;8(5).

Brown CG. Must-read social media advice for nurses. Nurse.org. June 9, 2016.

Nurses Service Organization. Nurse professional liability exposures: 2015 claim report update.

Egelko B. Loftier court lets nurse'due south probation stand. SF Gate. Baronial 8, 2012.

EveryNurse.org. How nurses should exist using social media.

Jackson J, Fraser R, Ash P. Social media and nurses: Insights for promoting health for individual and professional use. Online J Issues Nurs. 2014;xix(3):2.

National Council of State Boards of Nursing. A Nurse's Guide to the Utilize of Social Media. November 2011.

National Council of Land Boards of Nursing. Welcome to Nursys.

Pew Research Centre: Internet & Technology. Social media fact sail. January 12, 2017.

Ramisetti Thousand. 'NY Med' star Katie Duke speaks out on getting fired from NYC hospital for posting Instagram photo of trauma room. New York Daily News. July 8, 2014.

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