Online Professionalism and Ethics
Course #97664 - $18 -
- Participation Instructions
- Review the course material online or in print.
- Complete the course evaluation.
- Review your Transcript to view and print your Certificate of Completion. Your date of completion will be the date (Pacific Time) the course was electronically submitted for credit, with no exceptions. Partial credit is not available.
Internet technology has become an integral part of American life, and it is crucial for practitioners to determine how technology impacts their professional lives. The course will review the different forms of Internet technologies that are commonly employed in both the professional and personal arenas and how these various online vehicles can have both positive and negative influences on professionalism and clinical practice. The concept of professionalism and how practitioners' online identity can impact boundaries, self-disclosure, privacy/confidentiality, and client/practitioner relationships will be reviewed.
- INTRODUCTION
- INTERNET AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY TRENDS
- REVIEW OF INTERNET COMMUNICATION TOOLS
- USE OF INTERNET TOOLS IN CLINICAL PRACTICE
- OVERVIEW OF PROFESSIONALISM AND ETHICS
- INTERNET TECHNOLOGIES AND PROFESSIONALISM AND ETHICS
- ONLINE SELF-DISCLOSURES
- ONLINE SEARCHES FOR INFORMATION ON PATIENTS OR CLIENTS
- BEST PRACTICE GUIDELINES
- CONCLUSION
- Works Cited
- Evidence-Based Practice Recommendations Citations
This course is designed for physicians, nurses, social workers, psychologists, therapists, and mental health counselors who wish to increase their knowledge of how their online presence can affect their professional practice in terms of professionalism, ethics, and professional identity.
As Internet technologies increasingly become ingrained in our professional and personal lives, the issues of professionalism and ethics should be considered carefully. The purpose of this course is to increase practitioners' level of awareness and knowledge of how Internet tools impact professionalism and ethics in clinical practice.
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to:
- Define Internet usage patterns and common Internet technologies.
- Analyze how various Internet technologies are utilized in clinical practice.
- Define professionalism.
- Evaluate how the use of specific Internet technologies can affect professionalism and ethics.
- Discuss how the use of Internet technologies can impact issues of boundaries, self-disclosure, privacy/ confidentiality, and professional relationships.
- Identify best practices for using Internet technologies as a clinical practitioner.
Alice Yick Flanagan, PhD, MSW, received her Master’s in Social Work from Columbia University, School of Social Work. She has clinical experience in mental health in correctional settings, psychiatric hospitals, and community health centers. In 1997, she received her PhD from UCLA, School of Public Policy and Social Research. Dr. Yick Flanagan completed a year-long post-doctoral fellowship at Hunter College, School of Social Work in 1999. In that year she taught the course Research Methods and Violence Against Women to Masters degree students, as well as conducting qualitative research studies on death and dying in Chinese American families.
Previously acting as a faculty member at Capella University and Northcentral University, Dr. Yick Flanagan is currently a contributing faculty member at Walden University, School of Social Work, and a dissertation chair at Grand Canyon University, College of Doctoral Studies, working with Industrial Organizational Psychology doctoral students. She also serves as a consultant/subject matter expert for the New York City Board of Education and publishing companies for online curriculum development, developing practice MCAT questions in the area of psychology and sociology. Her research focus is on the area of culture and mental health in ethnic minority communities.
Contributing faculty, Alice Yick Flanagan, PhD, MSW, has disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.
John M. Leonard, MD
Mary Franks, MSN, APRN, FNP-C
Margaret Donohue, PhD
Randall L. Allen, PharmD
The division planners have disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.
Sarah Campbell
The Director of Development and Academic Affairs has disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.
The purpose of NetCE is to provide challenging curricula to assist healthcare professionals to raise their levels of expertise while fulfilling their continuing education requirements, thereby improving the quality of healthcare.
Our contributing faculty members have taken care to ensure that the information and recommendations are accurate and compatible with the standards generally accepted at the time of publication. The publisher disclaims any liability, loss or damage incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents. Participants are cautioned about the potential risk of using limited knowledge when integrating new techniques into practice.
It is the policy of NetCE not to accept commercial support. Furthermore, commercial interests are prohibited from distributing or providing access to this activity to learners.
Supported browsers for Windows include Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.0 and up, Mozilla Firefox 3.0 and up, Opera 9.0 and up, and Google Chrome. Supported browsers for Macintosh include Safari, Mozilla Firefox 3.0 and up, Opera 9.0 and up, and Google Chrome. Other operating systems and browsers that include complete implementations of ECMAScript edition 3 and CSS 2.0 may work, but are not supported. Supported browsers must utilize the TLS encryption protocol v1.1 or v1.2 in order to connect to pages that require a secured HTTPS connection. TLS v1.0 is not supported.
The role of implicit biases on healthcare outcomes has become a concern, as there is some evidence that implicit biases contribute to health disparities, professionals' attitudes toward and interactions with patients, quality of care, diagnoses, and treatment decisions. This may produce differences in help-seeking, diagnoses, and ultimately treatments and interventions. Implicit biases may also unwittingly produce professional behaviors, attitudes, and interactions that reduce patients' trust and comfort with their provider, leading to earlier termination of visits and/or reduced adherence and follow-up. Disadvantaged groups are marginalized in the healthcare system and vulnerable on multiple levels; health professionals' implicit biases can further exacerbate these existing disadvantages.
Interventions or strategies designed to reduce implicit bias may be categorized as change-based or control-based. Change-based interventions focus on reducing or changing cognitive associations underlying implicit biases. These interventions might include challenging stereotypes. Conversely, control-based interventions involve reducing the effects of the implicit bias on the individual's behaviors. These strategies include increasing awareness of biased thoughts and responses. The two types of interventions are not mutually exclusive and may be used synergistically.