KATHY HOLLOWAY suggests celebrating Matariki – the Māori New Year – with a resolution to explore the Twittersphere.
In June as we celebrate Matariki, take a moment to review your previous New Year resolutions (if you had not made any, this is your chance!).
According to the Māori Language Commission, Matariki – the Māori New Year, this year marked on June 10 – signals a time of growth and change. It’s a time to prepare, and a time of action. Make 2013 the year you decide to explore Twitter as a social media tool to link with the wider nursing and health community.
You are probably already using social networking (an estimated 48 per cent of adults use Facebook for example) in your private life but what about professionally? Nurses can use Twitter to connect globally and even locally with nursing colleagues through a kind of micro-blogging process aka ‘tweeting’. Of course just like with Facebook and other social media, when entering the Twittersphere, nurses should follow the professional guidelines for social media (see NETS and NZNO guidelines here http://nurseducation.org.nz/content/download/448/1782/file/Social Media and the Nursing Profession FINAL.pdf and Nursing Council guidelines here http://nursingcouncil.org.nz/Media/Files/Guidelines-Social-Media).
Twitter is an online social networking service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as ‘tweets’. It is important to remember that Twitter is a highly public domain where everybody can see your posts.
Twitter was created in 2006 by American software developer Jack Dorsey, and in 2013 has over 500 million registered users (http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/march-2013-by-the-numbers-a-few-amazing-Twitter-stats/) generating over 340 million tweets daily. Twitter is available in more than 20 languages and can be viewed online or via apps on smart phones. The name has evolved from the original Twttr (after Flickr and Tumblr, other social networking sites) to the current Twitter and to tweets after the developers found synergy in their meaning as ‘short bursts of inconsequential information’. The top five tweeters in the world have over 30 million followers (Justin Bieber is currently at No. 1).
The use of Twitter in healthcare is growing, with the National Health Service in the UK using Twitter as a forum for patient information and gathering feedback on its services. In the USA, a recent Computerworld article revealed that around 30 per cent of health consumers now use social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to seek medical information and track and share symptoms. Patients are also using the sites to vent about health professionals, treatments, medical devices, and health providers. The CDC uses Twitter as a mechanism for raising health literacy with over 160,000 followers.
An example of the global potential is nursing Twitter chats, real time discussions that take place on Twitter at a given time using hashtag # to link conversations together. Keen to start? Follow the simple steps as below:
- Log on to www.twitter.com and follow the instructions to sign up.
- Add some information about yourself (remember to be aware of the privacy of your information).
- Every Twitter user has an @ symbol in front of their username – mine is @KathyHollow – not an exact match but you may not get one (remember those other millions of users).
- Search for people or organisations that you want to follow by using the search box. Check out these ones for a start: @WeNurChat, @NursingReviewNZ, and @BBCHealth
- Or you can search for a topic of interest by using the hashtag symbol # in front of the topic – e.g. #healthcare
You are now ready to become an independent tweeter – check out this site for further information http://www.hashtags.org/platforms/Twitter/basic-Twitter-terms-you-must-know/. Remember, with awareness comes choice and tweet away!
Ed. Connect with Nursing Review(@NursingReviewNZ) as your gateway to the world of Twitter. We’d love to share your tweets.
Dr Kathy Holloway is dean of the Faculty of Health at Whitireia Community Polytechnic.
CHECK THESE OUT
Online Issues in Nursing Journal – Social Media and Communication Technology: New “Friends” in Healthcare
This American peer-reviewed publication provides a forum for discussion of the issues inherent in current topics of interest to nurses and other health care professionals. The intent of this journal is to present different views on issues that affect nursing research, education, and practice, thus enabling readers to understand the full complexity of a topic. When each new topic is posted, the previous topic becomes available to all viewers. This topic is from September 2012 and very relevant to this month’s column, with six articles on the emerging presence of social media in healthcare. Of particular interest is an article about Health Tweets: An Exploration of Health Promotion on Twitter. Follow the journal on Twitter at @ANAOJIN [Site accessed 25 May and last updated May 2013].
Pediatric Nursing Journal
http://www.pediatricnursing.net/
The website for the well-known journal, Pediatric Nursing, which has a stated focus on the needs of professional nurses in pediatric practice, research, administration, and education. It provides information related to health care for normal, sick, or disabled children and their families; pediatric clients in the hospital, clinic or office, school, community, or home. A variety of full text articles are freely available that highlight current topics and issues in pediatric practice and health policy, serving a wide range of pediatric professionals – from those who practice nursing in acute care or specialty units to those who promote health in non-hospital environments. You can access professional practice resources and continuing education from the site without registration or you can subscribe and get full access to the journal which is published six times per year. Follow this journal on Twitter @PedNursing (Site accessed 25 May and last updated March 2013).
