NURS 6401 : Nursing Informatics

As a result of the technology revolution in the healthcare sector, healthcare providers are increasingly bringing their own devices such as tablets and mobile phones with the purpose of assisting them with their professional work. Among the healthcare professionals, nurses are the true leaders of the trend known as ‘Bring your own devices (BYOD)’ as a result of their autonomy at work and the mobility to work in collaboration with different healthcare professionals. In general, BYOD holds the potential to increase the productivity of the nurses or job performance since individuals are at ease while using their own devices. An increased sense of work-life balance is also evident. The belief of the professionals is that use of personal devices enables professionals to address the critical gaps in communication (Martinez et al., 2017).

Despite of the advantages of the BYOD concept, there are some challenges faced while following this trend. The security issues revolving around BYOD need special mention. The healthcare organization supporting BYOD might not be developing well-defined and robust BYOD policy as well as an end user acceptable use agreement. Due to this, the users might not be having a clear concept about issues such as support and data management. Security issues might be evident related to lost mobile devices when there is no sufficient security. This can cause major corporate expense. This is of much importance since the professional-owned devices might be strong valuable health information (healthit.gov, 2014). As highlighted by Lachman (2012) failure in setting passwords to the devices owned by professionals would cause concerns. As a result of demand of features, mobile devices might be configured in a manner that supports minimal security settings. In case there is no password sensitive data might be lost or accessed by an unauthorized user. Patient information might be lost under such conditions. Misplaced, stolen or lost mobile and other electronic devices account for major proportion of external as well as internal security breaches. Further, for meeting the employee mobile technology demands, health care organizations are not placing required importance on ‘baking in’ security in software and device hardware development. Future roadmap planning is also not considered for development. Du to this, there a reactive fashion is maintained for addressing data security concerns.

The issues highlighted need urgent interventions for minimizing the risk of facing significant challenges in achieving success of BYOD. As a nurse, it would be appropriate to take a proactive approach to address the issues in an effective manner. A realistic baseline assessment is to be conducted for understanding the types of personally owned devices that might be relevant to the work-related tasks. This would ensure that only the relevant devices are used in the setting. Further, information security requirements are to b adhered to as set by the care organization. It is to be remembered that private information and professional information are to be kept in a distinct manner. In addition, additional password access security measures are to be taken such as biometric security (Bautista et al, 2018).

As an Advanced Nurse Practitioner, certain steps are taken for addressing the issues in own practice setting. Policy set in relation to BYOD is useful only when all employees are educated regarding it. Since BYOD is a part of the larger workflow, the employees are communicated regarding the needs of adhering to the policy. In addition, mobile device management software is installed that can remotely wipe devices when there is loss of the same.

References:

Bautista, J. R., Rosenthal, S., Lin, T. T., & Theng, Y. L. (2018). Predictors and outcomes of nurses’ use of smartphones for work purposes. Computers in Human Behavior, 84, 360-374.

Healthit.gov. (2014). Protecting Your Health Information: Health IT Privacy and Security of your Health Information. Retrieved from https://www.healthit.gov/patients

Lachman, B. D. (2012). Ethical challenges in the era of health care reform. MEDSURG Nursing, 21(4), 245–50.

Martinez, K., Borycki, E., & Courtney, K. L. (2017). Bring Your Own Device and Nurse Managers’ Decision Making. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 35(2), 69-76.