Social media: raising the profile of AHPs

Abstract

Social media is reshaping healthcare and the way healthcare professionals and patients interact. In Scotland, few allied health professionals (AHPs) use these media to connect with policy makers, service users, the public, or colleagues. We aimed to establish whether social media, could be used to raise the profile of AHPs—three members of the AHP Directors Scotland Group (ADSG) and one AHP national lead. Training in the use of social media tools was supplemented by support by a subject matter expert throughout the 12-week project. Each AHP used social media in support of their own area of expertise. Over 1348 tweets and 8 blogs were posted, 753 followers attracted. Various audiences were reached; including UK and international AHPs; other healthcare professionals, professional bodies, the public, third sector and patient representative organisations. Working within an ethical framework, AHPs can use social media to promote greater awareness of their role and impact. It can also be used to forge new relationships and connect with individuals and organisations not routinely experienced.

Why should we care about social media codes of conduct in healthcare organisations? A systematic literature review

“…2 ). The key problems found were privacy breaches (Anderson and Guyton 2013 ; Childs and Martin 2012 ; Chilvers 2011 ; Hughes 2012 ; Jannsen 2009 ; Ly and Ratnaike 2011 ; Suby 2013 ; Sweet 2012 ), the unclear distinction between personal and employee profiles (Childs and Martin 2012 ; Hughes 2012 ; Jannsen 2009 ; Knudson 2012 ; Ly and Ratnaike 2011 ; Smith and Lambert 2014 ) and abusive or inappropriate content (Chilvers 2011 ; Holdsworth et al 2013 ; Hughes 2012 ; Suby 2013 ). Protecting patient privacy is paramount to the healthcare industry, and this resonated throughout the early years’ articles and continues to be a current problem (Comber et al 2021 ; Khan et al 2021 ; Law et al 2021 ; Walsh et al 2021 ).…”

“…The early years presented articles that attempted to provide guidelines to healthcare organisation employees on using social media to promote themselves on social media (Jannsen 2009 ) when social media was a new channel for communication in healthcare. However, in 2013, reports emerged from healthcare organisations of employees misusing social media, and the need for ethical frameworks became more apparent (Holdsworth et al 2013 ). Moreover, codes of conduct needed to change.…”

“… Article type Jannsen 2009 Online profile can affect job prospects Privacy Guideline Chilvers 2011 Abusive or inappropriate content Privacy Guideline Ly and Ratnaike 2011 Breaching confidentiality Process and procedure Editorial Childs and Martin 2012 Employee dilemmas Separate personal from private. Privacy Research article Hughes 2012 Misconduct and unfit to practice Policy Knudson 2012 Privacy violations Commentary Sweet 2012 Reduce barriers to the use of social media Commentary Anderson and Guyton 2013 Employees sharing too much personal information Review article Holdsworth et al 2013 Inappropriate employee conduct. Organisations seeing social media as disruptive Staff need to use tool within an ethical framework and adhere to their own employee code of conduct Research article Suby 2013 Inappropriate use of photos and video Commentary Adams et al 2014 Live tweeting during a medical procedure Research article Basevi et al 2014 Privacy breaches.…”

The Elizabeth Casson Memorial Lecture 2013: Transformational Leadership in Occupational Therapy — Delivering Change through Conversations

“…As an illustration, we created Project Gandhi (2012), an online project about informing the wider community of the value of AHPs in Scotland. It was established in March 2012 with a group of four of us, all in strategic leadership roles, and ran for 12 weeks; the name was chosen for the project's resonance with the words attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, that we should 'be the change we want to see in the world' (Holdsworth et al 2013). We evaluated the project, concluding that the use of social media can positively promote greater awareness of our role and impact, forging new relationships, connecting with individuals and organisations globally, in a manner not routinely experienced.…”

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“…[11] Many scholars turn to social media to facilitate learning, disseminate research findings, or showcase conference presentations. [17][18][19][20] Defined as a "form of electronic communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, messages and other content like pictures," social media facilitates the rapid dissemination of information to a global audience." [21 p10] In a qualitative study of physicians, pharmacists, and nurses in Catalonia, Lupianez-Villanueva et al [20] report that social media are used for information consumption rather than for knowledge production.…”