Hiring and Your Social Media Advantage

Using social media as part of your hiring process will help you find the kind of employees you want for your organization.

Jennifer was hired two months ago by her new boss Sally. Jennifer was an okay worker, but there were some things about her character that concerned Sally and Jennifer's co-workers. She had the skills to do the job, but she was not fitting into her team or the culture of the organization. Sally had thought she made a good hire, but was beginning to doubt Jennifer's longevity with the organization. When it came time for Jennifer's new hire 90-day review, Sally had no choice but to let her go. By this time Jennifer had become a negative influence on her co-workers and morale was beginning to suffer. It was time for Sally to being the costly and time consuming hiring process over again.

Hiring managers are faced with the described situation above far too often. They think they have made a good hire, but soon realize the mistake they made. 20 years ago, hiring somebody who's character and personality does not fit within the organizational culture would be very difficult to foresee. Today, there are resources available through social media that help hiring mangers make more informed hiring decisions.

Why is Character So Important?

When a new employee is brought into an organization, that new employee will have an effect on their co-workers and on the culture of the organization itself. Whether that effect is positive or negative greatly depends upon the character of the the new employee. It is important to take the character of a potential new hire into account before making the hiring decision. Finding someone who has the basic skills and knowledge to get the job done is critical to being able to do the job. With this in mind, if a hiring manager can find a candidate who has good basic skills, not superman skills, but a basic understanding of the job skills and knowledge, but also has good character, then that is a great candidate.

Social Media Resource

When a hiring manager begins to narrow his or her list of candidates down to the final few, it is time to find out more about their character. One of the best places to discover more about a persons character is by reviewing the select candidates social media profiles and posts. This enables a hiring manager to get a basic understanding of the candidates and their character. It is through the language they use, their posts, and how they interact with others that gives the hiring manager look at the personality and character of who they are looking to hire.

Social Media and Privacy

Some hiring managers may say that they do not feel comfortable looking at a candidates social media profiles due to it being perceived as an invasion of privacy. It is important to understand that anything posted online within a blog or social media is not private! Anything posted on the Internet is available to anyone at anytime and cannot be permanently removed. Any type of posting on the Internet, immediately becomes public knowledge. Reviewing someones social media profiles is not an invasion of privacy.

Hiring managers are given the responsibility to bring the best and most qualified new employees into their organization. Having the ability to review social media profiles makes it less of a crap shoot to accomplish this task.

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Walking the Social Media Tightrope

Much like walking on a tightrope, participating on social media is a science as well as an art.

People post on social media all the time. They like to post pictures, tag their location when they are somewhere cool and they even like to write about what they are eating. Unfortunately, many people do not see any harm in what they post. For example, below is an example of somebody posting something that they perceived as innocent and, in their eyes, thoughtful:

In an assisted living center, a housekeeper posted a picture of a vision and hearing impaired resident on her social networking webpage, with the caption "This is my friend," along with the resident's first name.

By posting the picture of the resident without their consent, the employee violated HIPAA Privacy regulations. After the violation was brought to the employees’ attention, the employee apologized and immediately removed the photo. She said she was not aware that a person could not do such a thing without the resident's consent. While the employee did not have malicious intent, the action was still a violation of the resident’s privacy.

Social media is a double edged sword. If used properly, social media can be an amazing tool that can be used in many beneficial ways. However, if used improperly, social media can do extensive damage to the user and the organization they work for.

Dangers of Social Media

Use of social media by healthcare professionals can present some challenges and possibly open the door to HIPAA Privacy violation and future liability. Here are some examples of social media privacy violations that have lead to a HIPAA Privacy audit:

• Posting pictures of patients/residents without their consent
• Posting a video of a patient
• Posting a video describing a patient or a patients situation
• Posting a “selfie” in a restricted area where Protected Health Information (PHI) is visible
• Writing a post or comment about a patients situation

These social media posts can severely damaging to an organization and to the individual who’s privacy had been compromised. In addition to these actions leading to a HIPAA Privacy audit, these type of social media posts also have a negative effect on the reputation of the healthcare organization. Privacy violations do not go unnoticed by other patients and these privacy violations do cause patients to rethink their trust in their healthcare provider.

As with walking a tightrope, it is very easy to slip and fall into unwanted territory with social media posts.

Beauty of Social Media

While social media can have many negative effects on an organization and patients, it can also be used for some great things. These are some examples where social media can have a positive impact in the healthcare world:

• Educate followers with various health tips
• Maximize exposure of an organizations community contribution
• Give patients a platform for them to write positive reviews
• Celebrate the accomplishments of your employees (post with their permission)
• Announce specials, discounts, or new product

There is so much an organization can do with social media that will have a positive effect. However, social media posting in the healthcare industry is like walking a very fine line. When posting on social media, it is important to have established guidelines and policies in writing. This will enable a healthcare provider to safely post on social media without fear of slipping and falling into unwanted territory.

Be sure to take to have documented training on social media for your employees. They need to know the impact their social media posting can have on patients and on the organization itself. In addition, having documented training will help protect the organization against liability if the need arises to discipline an employee for not following social media policies and procedures.

If done right, having a positive social media presence will be very beneficial to an organization. However, it is important to stay on that narrow rope when posting. It can be very easy to move slightly to one side or the other and fall into unwanted post territory.

For more information about safely posting on social media, please watch the following webinar:

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Being Clear on Healthcare Social Media Policies

Define Your Social Media Policies Now To Reduce Future Issues

Love it or hate it, social media is a fact of life. It can be a great means for medical practices to raise awareness, educate, and engage patients.

However, it's also easy to find stories about social media gone wrong in healthcare. Many of these involve HIPAA violations by staff who don't understand the inherent lack of privacy in social media posts. ProPublica, an investigative news organization, recently reported on more than 30 incidents where staff inappropriately shared images and other patient information over social media networks.

In light of the horror stories, there is a temptation for practices to construct a "defensive" policy focused solely on restricting staff use of social media; essentially "What you don't say can't hurt us." Instead, you should seek a balance that not only protects patient privacy and discourages public relations gaffes, but also allows those who know your practice best — its staff — to show pride in their work and promote it. Designing a good social media policy for your practice can tip that balance to the positive.

Here are some ways to help you get there:

1. Keep it simple. Staff will view a policy that is too long and tries to cover everything negatively — if it's read at all. Further, because social media is constantly evolving, too much specificity will virtually guarantee your policy will quickly become obsolete.

2. Be clear about your goals. To provide context for your social media policy, put the focus on what you are trying to accomplish. These goals may be things such as maintaining patient confidentiality, compliance with applicable laws and regulations, protecting the practice from negative outcomes, enhancing the practice's professional image, and ensuring a productive and focused workplace.

3. Don't reinvent the wheel. There are many easily adaptable, great policies available online. You can find many examples here and can even view policies by professional sector, including healthcare of course.

4. Get beyond the "thou shalt not." See the positive as well as the negative. Don't be so afraid of the worst-case disaster that you stop staff from telling your practice's story. The average adult Facebook user has about 300 friends, meaning that even in a small practice you could easily reach thousands of people with a positive message. Imagine someone saying, "I'd love to tell my Facebook friends about the money we raised at the local charity event, but our social media policy won't allow us to post on work-related topics."

5. Don't just dictate, educate. Beyond the policy itself, staff may need help in thinking through how this all works "in real life." Again, there already are some great resources to give you a running start on this. One example is "A Nurse's Guide to the Use of Social Media." You can offer real examples and scenarios that help your staff understand the repercussions on using social media to represent your practice.

6. Listen and respond to feedback. This allows you to not only hear concerns staff may have, but also get a sense whether they understand your social media policy. Initial staff reaction to a social media policy may not be warm and fuzzy. Most staff will easily understand rules on using practice equipment and network connections for personal use during the workday. However, you may get pushback on "restrictions" outside of work time. Point out that HIPAA violations hurt patients — and they can have negative legal consequences for not only the practice, but also the individual staff member. Be upfront and explain that your policy covers both staff social media activity at work and off the clock. Respond to any concerns by communicating the practice's expectations of staff professionalism, both on and off the clock.

7. Back it up. Enforcement and sanctions may be unpleasant, but they are an absolute necessity. Having a policy but not enforcing it may be worse than no policy at all, since this sends staff the message that you're not serious. It also can create liability for the practice if you have a policy in place and make no effort to ensure that it is followed. Your medical practice's sanctions for policy violations — especially those involving HIPAA — should be documented and consistently applied to all staff.

If you are successful, your social media policy and staff education efforts will offer bright-line guidance prohibiting illegal or unethical activity, while also encouraging staff to share their successes at your practice. That is a win-win for patients, the practice, and staff.

Source(s): Stephen McCallister, http://www.physicianspractice.com, www.hcsiinc.com

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HIPAA Violations and Social Networking

Social Networking Is Putting Your Practice at Risk

Many healthcare organizations are using social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) as a means of connected with their client base, or as a means of advertising their services. Whether your practice is using these social networks or not, you

can reasonably assume that your employees are using these sites to expand their own personal social network. This can present a huge problem! 

Employees who frequently use these sites as a way of sharing the events of their personal lives are very likely to discuss work on-line as well. Social network sites create a huge risk for HIPAA violations, and also for employee relation problems.

HIPAA violations occurring on these popular social media sites demand employers establish guidelines for social network use. Because healthcare workers normally access them on personal time away from work, employers should discuss the importance of these guidelines.

Employers should generally prohibit employees from including any information about patients on their social network pages, even if patients have given them permission to do so. It is also recommended that you prohibit your employees from linking to a patient’s social network page. We encourage you to prohibit your employees from accessing these social networking pages while at work using your office computer.

Individuals are free to disclose any information they choose on their social network pages, including their own personal PHI. However, you should be sensitive about your employees linking to these pages at work because of the appearance of impropriety and the distinct possibility of a HIPAA violation. Employers cannot control their employee’s lives and social media activity, EXCEPT as it relates to work.