unethical uses of smartphones in healthcare

Examine personal Smart Phone use and its implications in Healthcare Identify and explain a minimum of 3 unethical uses of Smartphones in healthcare (including text messaging and pictures) Discuss potential benefits to appropriate Smartphone use in healthcare Examine judicious use of Social Media and its implications in Healthcare Thus these healthcare professionals could not even utilise functions other healthcare professionals commonly use such as accessing medical apps and the internet. Case study Business ethics, Being Smart about Smartphones ... the worker might use the organization time which he is paid for in playing or doing his personal staffs by the use of smartphones which is really impolite behavior and unethical since it decrease the efficiency and productivity which the organization invest for. In regards to the issue of confidentiality we were particularly interested in establishing who owns the mobile used during clinical practice and the purposes it is used for (e.g., taking photographs of patients’ wounds). ing students’ perspectives on using their smartphones’ video apps to reflect on a nursing skill, in particular, the skill of how to assess clients’ readiness to learn. The first two survey questions established whether participants have a healthcare qualification and whether they had practiced within the last two years. This number is likely to rise with an increasing number of healthcare professionals obtaining smartphones and becoming aware of medical apps. Zanner, R., Wilhelm, D., Feussner, H., Schneider, G. (2007). Another concern regarding the use of mobiles within clinical practice pertains to cross-infection3,12,15. When mobile phones are used very close to some medical devices (including pacemakers, implantable defibrillators, and certain hearing aids) there is the possibility of causing interference with their operation. "[Smartphones have] so many components from different countries, which all have their own challenges regarding fairness." Paired samples t-tests were conducted for these analogous statements between mobile phones and the internet. Ethical concerns involving clinical photography using smartphones include patient privacy, unscrupulous use, informed consent, and security. Because smartphones and other mobile devices may be necessary for hospital communication between healthcare professionals, especially doctors, they can’t be restricted all together. However, little is known in regards to healthcare professionals’ use of and attitudes towards using smartphones (and applications) within clinical practice. “Apple only collects information on the location of nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi networks. A smarter way to practise. Two-thirds of nurses owning medical apps use them as part of their clinical practice. Electronic health records may represent beneficence because they are alleged to increase access to health care, improve the quality of car … Dasari, K. B., White, S. M., & Pateman, J. One study found that smartphones placed within 3 cm of critical care equipment produced interference16. These rules can help healthcare providers prevent exchanging secure data on unsecure devices, apps and networks. Identify and explain a minimum of 3 unethical uses of Smartphones in healthcare (including text messaging and pictures) Discuss potential benefits to appropriate Smartphone use in healthcare Examine judicious use of Social Media and its implications in Healthcare Six to 14 percent of nurses sent text messages, used app-based messaging or used picture messaging to send patient-related clinical information to their colleagues. Furthermore, given that the internet preceded smartphones, we also established healthcare professionals’ attitudes towards internet use in clinical practice as a comparison. In regards to using technology compared to traditional means of locating information such as in textbooks, healthcare professionals generally preferred to use technology and this was more so for the internet than apps. According to the survey, more than 90,000 mobile health apps are available. (2011). Potentially more dangerous, 52% used their smartphones on unsecured Wi-Fi networks, such as those at coffee shops. When healthcare professionals were questioned in regards to use of their mobile within clinical practice it became evident that with the exception of telephone calls, which can be performed on non-smartphones, several other common functions utilised can only be performed on smartphones (e.g., accessing emails, the internet and apps). (888) 536-1251, © 2020 Alvernia Online | Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions, data breaches in healthcare are the most expensive to remediate. Procedure “Despite advancements in mobile devices and unified communications, hospital IT has underinvested in technologies and processes to support nurses at point of care,” said Gregg Malkary, managing director of Spyglass Consulting Group. Healthcare professionals’ concerns in regards to being perceived to use a mobile for non-work purposes depended on whom they were seen by when using the device. Another drawback of social media in healthcare is that it can reduce overall employee productivity. However, this problem can be overcome by ensuring that smartphones are kept at a safe distance of one metre from a critical care bed16. Five participants, who owned a mobile, indicated that they do not use it during clinical practice (see figure 1). Examine personal Smart Phone use and its implications in Healthcare Identify and explain a minimum of 3 unethical uses of Smartphones in healthcare (including text messaging and pictures) Discuss potential benefits to appropriate Smartphone use in healthcare Examine judicious use of Social Media and its implications in Healthcare The four participants that used a smartphone within clinical practice, but were unaware of medical apps prior to the survey, indicated that they would consider obtaining them (see figure 1). Participants rated eleven analogous statements pertaining to their attitudes towards mobile phone versus internet use in clinical practice (see table 2). The recent adoption and use of smartphones by both consumers and providers of health care are the focus of this timely report by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn. When comparing attitudes towards the internet and mobile phones, in general attitudes towards both were favourable but more so for the internet. Furthermore, as a comparison, we were also interested in healthcare professionals’ attitudes towards internet use in clinical practice given that it preceded the use of apps and thus may be perceived to be more acceptable to use. Most (91%) healthcare professionals within in our study owned a mobile, and 87% of them used it during clinical practice. With the exception of one participant who stated in a written response to a question that they used an iPad we are unaware as to whether healthcare professionals within our study owned tablets. Furthermore, healthcare professionals may think that patients are not aware that smartphones can be used for medical purposes and thus patients may erroneously perceive the device is being used for non-work purposes. Savel, R. H., & Munro, C. L. (2011). Although the devices have much to offer for the quality of patient care, precautions must be taken to ensure sensitive data remains safe and secure. Among respondents who chose health care as their employment sector, 88.6% said they used their personal phones for work purposes. Nurses and other healthcare practitioners and patients have been using their smartphones in healthcare in diverse ways. Alvernia University’s online nursing program assist students in learning how to best use smart technology to improve patient outcomes, while respecting patient privacy and confidentiality. Therefore individuals may be less familiar with the role mobiles can play in clinical practice and thus an erroneous perception may have formed that they function more as social media tools than tools facilitating medical care. Uses and disclosures for treatment, payment, and health care operations [45 CFR 164.506]. This is one example of how new health-related technologies are being integrated into our lives. Consequently they used their privately owned device. There are currently more than 10,000 apps within the Apple App Store’s “medical, health care & fitness” category alone4. Healthcare professionals’ use of their own mobiles, as commonly reported within our study, appears to be in direct conflict with keeping patient information confidential. Mobile phone use during clinical practice Thus to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the use of new technology in clinical practice future studies should also include tablet use. The growing use of smartphones to access patient data has led to concern among CIOs and other technology managers that such uses could increase the likelihood of security breaches in which protected health information (PHI)—for example, patient data that resides on or is accessed using a smartphone—is inappropriately disclosed. The review included both direct health apps and also apps marketed under the area of well-being in addition to mHealth devices. 13. Smartphone: Can an iPhone app help stroke physicians? The five participants that used a smartphone during clinical practice and were aware of medical apps (see figure 1) but did not have them on their smartphone indicated the following reason(s) for not having them: not knowing how to obtain them (n = 1), finding medical apps too expensive (n = 1), having no need to use medical apps (n = 1), and other (n = 3). (2007). Images at your fingertips. Baumgart, D. C. (2011). Available: http://springerlink.com/content/p6t82ph541835u75/. Nurses should limit use to encrypted networks with passwords and firewalls. To avoid healthcare staff misusing smartphones for non-work related functions that may compromise patient care, there are policies you can implement. Second, they do not have the resources, processes and technologies to prevent and detect attacks and adequately protect healthcare data. This clearly is an area that needs further consideration. That delicate healthcare data is now available for everyone else to use if it gets out into the public forum. Our results suggest that mobile phone use, in particular smartphone use, within clinical practice is likely to increase in the future. However, attitudes for eight of the ten statements pertaining to mobile phone use were positive. 8146.0, viewed 5 April 2012, http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/4E4D83E02F39FC32CA25796600152BF4?opendocument. Given the evidence of smartphones assisting clinical practice11,13 and the prevalence of use in our study population, it was surprising to find that only 16% had a mobile phone provided by their clinical/healthcare workplace and of note, none were smartphones. 3. However, using the same disinfectants to those used to wipe down standard medical equipment may damage mobiles3. 11. Mobile health apps allow providers convenient access to health-related content to facilitate decision-making. Patients benefit from disease self-management tools, contact to … Despite the great variety of apps available for different tasks, they all have one common aim, which is to assist in clinical practice to improve patient outcomes. Electronic health records create conflict among several ethical principals. Smartphone app use among medical providers in ACGME training programs. However, for eight out of the ten statements showing significant differences between the internet and mobile phones, attitudes towards mobiles were still rated positively. The most common reason(s) reported for using their private mobile for clinical/healthcare work purposes was that they have no other mobile (n = 23), followed by that their clinical/healthcare workplace will not provide them with a mobile (n = 10), that it is convenient just to have one mobile instead of having multiple mobiles for different purposes (n = 5), that their privately owned mobile has more functions than their clinical/healthcare workplace mobile (n = 4), other reasons (n = 4) and that their clinical/healthcare workplace reimburses them for using their privately owned mobile (n = 2). (2011). As we expected, the clear majority of smartphone use was to access medical references and resources, but team members also used their phones for personal texts and e-mails, and 15% of residents acknowledged using their phones for non-patient care uses (such as web-surfing). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/4E4D83E02F39FC32CA25796600152BF4?opendocument, http://springerlink.com/content/p6t82ph541835u75/, Volume 2, Issue 1 | Journal of Mobile Technology in Medicine, The Major BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) Issues Facing Healthcare Industry, The Usage of Mobile Devices in a Clinical Environment - HomeworkDoers | HomeworkDoers, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Students prescribing emergency drug infusions utilising smartphones outperform consultants using BNFCs. Scalpel, stethoscope, iPad: The future is now in the intensive care unit. Most participants resided within a capital city (n = 34) whereas the remainder resided in a major urban centre (population: > 100,000) (n = 1), regional city or large town (population: 25,000 – 100,000) (n = 3), smaller town (population: 10,000 – 24,999) (n = 2) and a small community (population: <10,000) (n = 3). Three quarters of healthcare professionals who used smartphones within clinical practice and were aware of medical apps used medical apps within clinical practice. When healthcare professionals were questioned in regards to use of their mobile within clinical practice it became evident that with the exception of telephone calls, which can be performed on non-smartphones, several other common functions utilised can only be performed on smartphones (e.g., accessing emails, the internet and apps). The use of smartphones is becoming ubiquitous among medical professionals and the use of clinical photography has become an integral component of the management of patients in a variety of visually orientated specialties. This means that cell phones and other mobile devices aren’t equipped with protective technology like encryption, firewalls and antivirus software. Even if the policy doesn’t outline certain best practices, nurses should be aware of and abide by these standards. Examine personal Smart Phone use and its implications in Healthcare Identify and explain a minimum of 3 unethical uses of Smartphones in healthcare (including text messaging and pictures) Discuss potential benefits to appropriate Smartphone use in healthcare Examine judicious use of Social Media and its implications in Healthcare Discussion Hospitals should also have legal and cybersecurity professionals provide accountability and review. Havelka, S. (2011). Interference by new-generation mobile phones on critical care medical equipment. Thus the aims of the present study were to enumerate the number of healthcare professionals that use mobile phones within clinical practice and their attitudes towards using them. In the healthcare literature, a variety of articles describe the communication benefits that caregivers can derive when smartphones are used as an alternative to pagers or other communication methods. Approximately 98,000 patients die annually in the US due to medical errors, the majority of which are caused by ineffective communication [1-6]. However, using an on-line data collection method (i.e., excluding healthcare professionals who do not use the internet) poses a selection bias for our study in that healthcare professionals within our study are likely to have positive attitudes towards using the internet given that they completed the survey on-line. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012, Household Use of Information Technology, Australia, 2010-11, cat. References The survey was created using Qualtrics (an online platform to administer surveys and collect responses). Just 1 year later, a separate investigation put smartphone ownership among health care professionals in the U.S. at 81 percent, growing to 91 percent in 2012. Anyone with Internet access or a smartphone can now transmit tweets, Facebook postings, ... Opinion 9.124 Professionalism in the use of social media. Our study shows that mobiles, including smartphones, are commonly used within clinical practice and that at present most healthcare professionals use their privately owned device. (2012). Closely related to this topic is that patient confidentiality could be breached when smartphones are used to send messages or images pertaining to patients3,18. 18. Furthermore, the use of a specifically designed app also impeded healthcare professionals in regards to their speed at assessing an ischemic stroke12. Healthcare, medical research, as well as technological and pharmaceutical companies are […] For example, Flannigan and McAloon found that drug dosage calculator apps increases doctors’ and medical students’ accuracy and confidence in regards to drug dosage calculations11, whereas Low et al. Contact tracing is a well-established feature of public health practice during infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics. 9. This result is quite concerning given that the content of information retrieved from online searches is not always reliable. Community Oncology, 9, 141-142. The risk is much reduced for 3G phones and newer equipment. Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, 8, 194-199. Despite the fact that many hospitals have policies forbidding use of personal phones by employees during work hours, one study found that 91.1% of participants reported checking a mobile device for missed calls and/or text messages, and half indicated accessing social media. found that a specifically designed app improves healthcare professionals’ performance in a simulated cardiac arrest emergency scenario13. 6. Forty-three healthcare professionals completed the survey. Smartphones in nursing education. For the remaining two statements mobile phones were perceived negatively. On the other hand, if healthcare professionals were expected to use privately owned mobiles within clinical practice then one could not impose regulations on how these devices are to be used for non-work purposes. Unless patient information can be securely separated from non-work information and erased remotely there is a concern in regards to keeping patient information confidential. However, it must be kept in mind that Low et al.’s study involved a simulated environment, as opposed to real clinical situations, and did not obtain extensive information pertaining to healthcare professionals’ attitudes towards using mobiles in clinical practice13. b>Background : Over the last few years mobile phone applications have been designed for healthcare professionals. 5. Thus if medical apps are to have a future within healthcare then having some quality assurance in regards to an apps’ content, via a formal review process, is paramount to ensure patient safety. Most participants (91%) owned a mobile. However, it is unknown as to whether these advertisements were displayed. Those who had a mobile were asked a series of questions pertaining to the mobile(s) such as but not limited to ownership (private, clinical/healthcare workplace, non-clinical/healthcare workplace), apps support, and purposes for which the mobile is used. Conclusions Identify and explain a minimum of 3 unethical uses of Smartphones in healthcare (including text messaging and pictures) Discuss potential benefits to appropriate Smartphone use in healthcare. Here's the latest on mobile in healthcare: The adoption of mobile At present, 25 percent of physicians use smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices to deliver care to patients, according to Great Call. 1. Smartphone and device users can browse the Internet, and they can stay connected even when away from WiFi. (2011). Solutions can help minimize these threats. Negative Impact of Smartphones on Our Health Now that we’ve unpacked some of the little-known positives, let’s turn the focus towards two potentially negative impacts smartphones are having on our health. Are ideal is quite concerning given that the content of information retrieved from online searches is always! Demographics more females ( n = 43, SD = 11.1, range = 28-66.... 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