Social media 

Social media is communication, interaction, content-sharing... Individuals use social media to stay in touch and interact with friends and family. Many businesses use social media to marketing and promoting their products.  

Professionals can share the latest information on social media, provide practical information on illness and treatment. It also allows clients to find peer suppor.  

You have to follow the same ethical principles when using social media as you do in the work. Social media can be likened to other public writing and information gathering. Take responsibility for the image of your profession and your employer in public.  

Finland has public health care and social services. Public services rarely use social media to market themselves. Mostly for sharing information. Recently, however, there have been updates,  in maternity wards, etc.  Private service providers do more social media content. For them it is a marketing channel.  

We checked out THL´s (Finnish institute for health and welfare) Facebook pages. There are things on a wide scale, from alcoholism to various studies. THL uses social media to share information. 

 

Social media security risks 

Private information might get stolen. Social media can spread misinformation or misleading information. Social media is not monitored by health professionals and this is a big problem. It is difficult for people to know what information is correct and what is misleading. Anyone can publish anything. It always pays off to be media-critical. Even updates from generally accepted public authorities can be questioned. For example, the daily monitoring of covid-19 statistics. Was it a needless scare?  

 You have to remember, if you put something online, it's there forever. 

Social media is time-consuming and the results are not immediately visible. Not all services can be online. Some customers still wants to call or visit the services they need.

Sources:

Pros and cons of social media in healtcare. 2022. Available at: https://digitalismedical.com/blog/pros-and-cons-of-social-media-in-healthcare/. Quoted 27.11.2023

Centria university of applied sciences. 2023. Social media in social and healt care (PowerPoint slides).  Quoted 27.11.2023.  

Social media guidelines for nurses. 2012. Available at: https://youtu.be/i9FBEiZRnmo. Quoted 27.11.2023

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