How to set up and use a Twitter account professionally part 2

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Authors

Meriel Chudleigh, Lecturer in adult nursing, Faculty of Health and Human Sciences, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, England.
Ray Jones, Professor of health informatics, Faculty of Health and Human Sciences, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, England.

Short description

Read this module and update your knowledge and skills on how to set up and use a Twitter account professionally.

Detailed description

This article encourages nurses to use Twitter to engage in professional discussions, share information and raise awareness of alternative views to enhance practice and patient care. Twitter is an online social media service that enables users to send and read 140-character messages called tweets.
  • Twitter is free and accessible across multiple platforms and devices, providing immediate contact with professionals, organisations and the public worldwide.
  • Many healthcare professionals use Twitter to share ideas and information.
  • Responsible use of Twitter creates opportunities to access information, discuss issues and challenge misconceptions to support professional nursing behaviours.




Evidence base

The healthcare environment is changing rapidly and nurses need to remain knowledgeable of any advances in technology and practice, and ensure their skills and knowledge are up to date to maintain competence (NMC 2015b). Time pressures and autonomous working might mean nurses have limited opportunities to discuss practice, issues and challenges with colleagues. Isolated workplaces and shift work may limit access to wider healthcare communities, potentially resulting in the unquestioning of local practice.
Nurses can use Twitter to:
  • Keep their knowledge and skills up to date, and develop and improve their practice.
  • Be aware of changes in healthcare, particularly since this area is challenging and constantly changing.
  • Engage in learning.
  • Enhance professional development through networking and responsible use of social media.
The NHS is experiencing significant service demand and financial pressures (NHS England 2015). With advances and growth in the use of social media, nurses require training to develop their information technology skills as well as encouragement to use social media to expedite change (The Health Foundation 2015). Although Archibald and Clark (2014) claimed that nurses are slow in their uptake of Twitter, there are many nurses using this platform in communities such as @WeNurses and @NurChat, and some universities include Twitter as an assessed element of the undergraduate nursing curriculum (Jones et al 2016).
  • Professional networking: nurses can use social media platforms such as Twitter to connect with other healthcare professionals, patient groups and the wider healthcare community. They benefit from contact with professional ‘communities of practice’, which are groups of people who share an interest and/or a profession and engage in collective learning through sharing information and experience. Specialist knowledge and skills develop through increasing contact and discourse with communities of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991).
  • Bridging the learning gap: Twitter dialogue can involve healthcare professionals, students, service users and representatives of influential national and international organisations. Therefore, discussion can be wide-ranging. Adopting local practice unquestioningly might occur as a result of limited exposure to innovation, wider practice and professional analysis. Therefore, access to an extensive, knowledgeable community of practice through Twitter can bridge this learning gap.
  • Support professional practice: composing a tweet involves refining one’s thoughts and being succinct (Cottrell and Morris 2012). Twitter is a dynamic conversational process, involving selecting, adding and redistributing knowledge (Gillen and Merchant 2012). Twitter focuses on public discussion rather than personal details about the individual (Hughes et al 2012). This might be one of the reasons why many nursing communities use this forum to support professional practice.
Careless use of social media can pose a risk. The Code: Professional Standards of Practice and Behaviour for Nurses and Midwives (NMC 2015b) requires that nurses uphold the reputation of their profession at all times, which includes using social media and networking sites responsibly, and respecting others’ privacy.
The NMC (2015a) provides additional guidance on using social media responsibly and notes ‘the scope of social media is constantly evolving’. Therefore, responsive regulation is required, however Beard (2013) claimed draconian policies prohibiting social media use are ineffective because of a wide and active user group.
A post on Twitter is automatically visible to the public, but it could be argued that anything posted online, even in seemingly closed or private groups, has the potential to be made public. Professional behaviour remains the responsibility of the individual; consideration for others and appropriate choice are taught in undergraduate nurse education (Jones et al 2016), and should be demonstrated and exercised throughout one’s career. Nurses can use technological literacy and Twitter contacts to help them keep up to date, influence decisions and action change.

Learning points

  1. Healthcare professionals should use twitter to engage in professional discussions, share information and raise awareness of alternative views to enhance practice and patient care.
  2. Twitter can be used to have conversations on different topics, promote events, to increase engagement both in advance of and during an event, to access a wider audience at conferences, to share views and opinions and to disseminate information.
  3. The hashtag sign (#) is used to draw attention, promote and to organise information so that it is easy to find. Hashtags help Twitter users to get found by their target audience. People use hashtags before a relevant keyword or phrase in their Tweet to categorise those Tweets and increase their chances of being found in Twitter search.
Learning points
  1. Nurses can use Twitter to assist in keeping their knowledge and skills up to date, and develop and improve their practice; keep abreast of changes in health care; engage in learning; enhance professional development.
  2. Careless use of social media can pose a risk to the nurse and the wider nursing and patient community. Nurses should uphold the reputation of their profession even when using social media and networking sites and respect others’ privacy.
Disclaier: Please note that information provided by RCNi Learning is not sufficient to make the reader competent to perform the task. All clinical skills should be formally assessed at the bedside by a nurse educator or mentor. It is the nurse's responsibility to ensure their practice remains up to date and reflects the latest evidence

Useful resources

References

Archibald MM, Clark AM (2014) Twitter and nursing research: how diffusion of innovation theory can help uptake. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 70, 3, e3-e5. MEDLINE • CROSSREF
Beard E (2013) Nurse leaders and the use of social media: becoming literate to lead. Nurse Leader. 11, 6, 38-40. CROSSREF
Cottrell S, Morris N (2012) Study Skills Connected: Using Technology to Support Your Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Gillen J, Merchant G (2012) Contact calls: Twitter as a dialogic social and linguistic practice. Language Sciences. 35, 47-58.
Hughes DJ, Rowe M, Batey M et al (2012) A tale of two sites: Twitter vs. Facebook and the personality predictors of social media usage. Computers in Human Behavior. 28, 2, 561-569. CROSSREF
Jones R, Kelsey J, Nelmes P et al (2016) Introducing Twitter as an assessed component of the undergraduate nursing curriculum. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 72, 7, 1638-1653. MEDLINE • CROSSREF
Lave J, Wenger E (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. MEDLINE
NHS England (2015) The NHS Five Year Forward View. https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/5yfv-web.pdf(Last accessed: 22 September 2016.)
Nursing and Midwifery Council (2015a) Guidance on Using Social Media Responsibly. www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/nmc-publications/social-media-guidance.pdf (Last accessed: 22 September 2016.)
Nursing and Midwifery Council (2015b) The Code: Professional Standards of Practice and Behaviour for Nurses and Midwives. www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/nmc-publications/nmc-code.pdf (Last accessed: 22 September 2016.)
The Health Foundation (2015) Shaping the Future: A Strategic Framework for a Successful NHS. www.health.org.uk/sites/health/files/ShapingTheFuture.pdf (Last accessed: 22 September 2016.)








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