We Can, But Dare We?

It is no secret as to how fast social media has grown over the past decade between helping connect with long lost friends and family on Facebook, getting your resume out to others through LinkedIn, sharing a video on YouTube, or even just letting off some steam on Twitter, hard to believe that so much of this we see in our day to day lives can be creating such a controversy within the Health Care System. Most of these sites listed are made into little convenient applications on majority of the populations smart phones that can be helpful as well as distracting (Gill, Kamath, & Gill, 2012).

The use of mobile technology in the healthcare industry has exploded in the last ten years. Mobile health or mHealth, provides an entire new aspect of the relationship between patients and their doctors and other medical providers. Mobile devices place important and critical information into a medical professional’s hands in real-time. Doctors can monitor a patient’s condition more frequently, allowing them to make better and more informed decisions and diagnoses.

Unfortunately, along with the good must come the bad. For every positive aspect of smartphones and social media in healthcare related settings, there is an equally negative aspect. One pitfall of smartphones in healthcare is directly related to one of the positive aspects of smartphones: the availability of medical

……A recent survey by Kluwer Kluwer Health’s Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 71% of nurses are using smartphones for their job. It’s becoming the norm in the nursing workplace nowadays and the range of phone apps are moving beyond leisure. It’s not an exaggeration to say that smartphones are moving the nursing practice into a much greater height. From drug references, medication interaction disease, laboratory and safety information, nurses have access to all kinds of data to help them improve patient care.

The rapid development of technology throughout modern society has initiated the widespread use of social networking. Social networking plays a positive role in healthcare when educating, communicating, or advertising. However, poor judgments have the power to turn this positive into negative and damage professional reputations. Griffith (2014) stresses the importance of understanding that protected health information is not a matter of open secrets. Whether a lawyer, doctor, nurse, or a secretary, it is important to avoid conditions that may influence the health and security of patients or clients, as well as their own professional reputation (Aylott, 2011). The Purpose of this paper is to explore the appropriate use of cell phones and social networking in healthcare and the importance of understanding the ethical boundaries between professional uses opposed to personal use.

The emergency department in the modern hospital is one of the most complex clinical settings to operate. According to Johnson, Sensei, & Capasso (2012), this department is an intersection of the diagnosis and treatment of emergency cases. As a result, it experiences immense volumes of patients every day. However, in most hospitals, patients visit the facilities with an indication of what they might be suffering from. Specifically, they use their iPhones to get a list of conditions that they might be having (Boncana, 2016). This method of detection has come to be known as mHealth. In this regard, mHealth, rather mobile health, is a method that patients use to enhance their health and medical practices via the use of mobile technology. The cell phones used in this approach are equipped with medical/health software, a personal digital assistant (PDA), and patient monitoring devices.

In observation, (Fahnestock, McComb, & Deshmukh, 2013) stated "Information technologies are transforming the way healthcare is delivered. Innovations such as computer-based patient records, hospital information systems, computer-based decision support tools, community health information networks and new ways of distributing health information.” (p.3.2). In the sector of delivering healthcare using technology, has made it easier for healthcare professionals to access medical records, digitization of prescriptions and view test results. With the use of high-performance devices being used in the hospital, helps to make the jobs of healthcare professionals a little easier. As well as relieve anxiety from anxious patients that may be awaiting lab results to come back. Therefore, IT devices and services has been and continues to be a tremendous help and game changer for the healthcare system. However, there is still a lot of work to be done to help shape and reform the healthcare

Today, it is a common practice for patients to hold video conferences with physicians to save time and money normally spent on traveling to another geographic location or the time spend sending health information to specialist or doctor in the world. With more hospitals and practices using medical technology like mobile devices on the job, physicians now have access to any type of information they need, from “drug information, research and studies, patient history or records, and more within mere seconds” (Healthcare Business, 2014). The ease at which these mobile devices can be carry around provides physicians with the needed information. Applications that aid in identifying potential health threats and examining digital information like X-rays and computerized tomography (CT) scans also contribute to the benefits that information technology brings to medicine (Healthcare business, 2014).

The launch of the iPhone in 2007 transformed the humble mobile phone from a one-trick tool for communication into a catch-all platform whose functionality is constantly evolving. The smartphone … is now a pocket-size PC,” the editors wrote. “It facilitates instantaneous personal connections that make phone

Due to advances in technology, smartphone availability and use is far more widespread than in the past. According to a study done by Ericsson[1], Singapore

Cell phones have developed over the years to become not only a way to talk with others, but to have forms of entertainment, social media, and other means of communication. Many people today only rely on their phones or computers, and

At first, I was going to analyze and write about smartphones, however I found it more efficient to write also about a particular smartphone to narrow it down from such a broad technological artifact, such as answering who designed it, what for, what their position and the impact they want to have on society was, and their future visions. Therefore, I chose the iPhone as the centerpiece of smartphones I will be analyzing and an emphasis on applications. However, some of this information is relevant and interchangeable to all other smartphones. IPhones and smartphones allow us to access constant information and offer it the way we want it, as it is completely customizable now to fit our learning style. They keep us organized, send information to us in different ways, even shape and offer solutions such as for politics, economies, problems whether individual ones or globally. Smartphones capitalize on shared knowledge and has opened the door to inventors and those who have the knowledge to make our world a more connected place and lives easier by sharing it with us to use. We are able to communicate with other people far off, through space-time compression or shrinking-space to gather news and information.

Technology can assist healthcare workers on every clinical and administrative level to use information more effectively in clinical decision-making for patients, and in implementing strategic goals within an organization.

Smartphone has revolutionized the way we do thing, the role Smartphone play in today’s society is phenomenal. Today’s Smartphone is taking the role of computer, making it possible to do a lot with this small hand held device. It has a broad use such as sharing information, paying for products, browsing, and shopping. Virtually every activity today has a Smartphone application for it.

3. It can be argues that Smartphone are increasingly becoming an everyday necessity in people’s live because of the important functions that they can do and the fact that they are all available in just one handset.