Blog Activity #7

Big Welcome to my last blog !! In this week I'll talk about misuse of social technology by organization.

The post examines misuse of social technology by identifying a scenario in one of the organization. It looks into the ethical issues concerning the misuse of social media by the nurses, consequences, legal matters, and steps that can be taken to avoid a repeat of the misconduct. It is essential to come up with policies control the transfer of information on the social media and the ethical standards to be followed in a business environment (Flynn, 2008).

The National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) is an organization through which the board and the council network and share ideas on matters of public health. The board operates as a not-for-profit organization and seeks to create safety and welfare of the people, as well as facilitating licensing examinations among in nurses (Spector, Nancy & Kappel, 2012).

In 2011, a nurse commented on a small town newspaper blog about taking care of a handicapped child who was on a wheelchair. The nurse violated the privacy law by disclosing the age of the child and the family to the social media. According to NCSBN, it was unethical and insensitive for failure of the nurse to maintain the confidentiality of the patient. Nurses are supposed to keep confidentiality of the private information of the patient in accordance to the Board of Nursing (BON) code of ethics (Spector, Nancy & Kappel, 2012).Furthermore, there is a scenario in 2011 in which a photo of a patient in gown was forwarded through an email. The first recipient forwarded to other in an attempt to trace the source, and the sequence followed until the photo became the topic of discussion at the hospital. Before the management became aware of the violation of the patient’s privacy, the local media had found the story and aired it on the news headlines. Law enforcement started investigations on possibilities of sexual exploitation at the hospital. As a result, the administration placed the nurses on a compulsory leave, pending assessment the nature of the facilities to protecting the patients’ dignity, rights and protection. Unfortunately, the incidence placed the hospital at criticism by the BON on the patients’ confidentiality, and the hospital had to pay damages to the patient for the violation of his rights (Spector, Nancy & Kappel, 2012).

There are several consequences such as breach of the federal law which can result to criminal penalties, fines and even serve a sentence in jail. The state can impose privacy laws concerning the confidentiality of privacy records, as well as laws related to harassment. Other consequences include tort liability such as intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy. However, the hospital institution could suffer non-measurable impact when patients fail to visit the hospital for fear that the hospital might not appreciate confidentiality of the patients. As such, the hospital reputation would decline drastically and lose the competitive advantage.  The hospital could avoid such mistakes by reviewing the nurses’ codes of ethics such as sharing of the information at the consent of the patient (Mullerat, 2011).

According to the Diana C. Robertson on corporate social responsibility, she integrates social construct theory to bring out the need for the institution to build a business community based on moral society. She applies the theory to explain about acting ethically by analyzing issues of bribery, intellectual property and how to deal with conflicting standards and values in the organization. From the two hospital cases, the nurses did not have a clear framework of the ethical standards and values needed when handling the patient’s information. As a result, the action of spreading the patient’s content was unethical to the business community and a failure on the hospital’s corporate social responsibility (Robertson, 2009).

Every facet of our life today involves the social media, and information can be transferred within a very short time. However, organization should form policies to regulate the amount of information circulation in the social media to prevent the breach of the code of ethics and law. 

Thank for reading & hope you like it 

References

Flynn, G. (2008). Leadership and Business Ethics. Ireland: Springer Science & Business Media

Mullerat, R. (2011). Corporate Social Responsibility: The Corporate Governance of the 21st

Century. Netherlands: Kluwer Law International

Robertson, D.C. (2009). Corporate Social Responsibility and Different Stages of Economic

Development: Singapore, Turkey, and Ethiopia, Journal of Business Ethics, 88, 617 - 633.

Spector, Nancy., Kappel, D.M. (2012). Guidelines for Using Electronic and Social Media: The

Regulatory Perspective. The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 17(3).