patient friend request on Facebook

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I am wondering what anyone thinks about nurses adding patients as friends on Facebook? Many of the people on my friends list on Facebook are nurses I work with. We have a patient who get's admitted into the hospital frequently and is always on my floor. We have all taken care of her at some time or another so I'm sure she feels very familiar with us. Just recently one of the nurses accepted a friend request from this patient. I had to change all my privacy settings on facebook because I didn't feel it was appropiate for this patient to be able to see what goes on in my personal life. (not that there is anything going on in my personal life but it's just the point) Now there are 3 nurses who have added this patient to their friends list. If any of you know how facebook works depending on your privacy settings you can see your friends list of friends which means this patient can see all the other nurses, family members ,ect (even my nurse manager is on our friends list) I'm sure this patient will probably go down the list and send us all friend requests, however I do not feel comfortable adding her as my friend. I do not want her to feel bad about that but as I've said I don't feel it's professional. Any thoughts on this?

I am still a student, but reading through everyone's posts have caused some questions to pop up in my mind. I don't think I would want to add a patient as a friend on facebook, but I am curious as to why it is wrong for "patients to be friends" ...what exactly does this mean? I work at a nursing home as a summer job, and I have really tried to make an effort to talk to the residents, as many of them have few visitors and seem very lonely, which really saddens me. Is it wrong for me to talk about my family, life, etc to these residents? I make sure to never complain about my life or anything, and keep everything positive. Talking with the residents is probably one of my favorite parts of my job, and this was the same case in the clinicals I have had so far. I was wondering where the line should be drawn on discussing life, etc w/ patients???

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Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.

I talk about my family in a very general way once I get to know a patient. In LTC and Home Health you interact with the same people for months, so I don't think it's a big deal to say, "my mom did. . . " or mention my children.

In my reading of allnurses for a long time I've come across at least two people who got in a huge amount of trouble for something posted on their Facebook, and in 1 of those the person had all the privacy settings and assumed she was bulletproof. Not so. If you "friend" patients, you have to be thinking all the time about what is appropriate and what your friends may comment about. The anxiety isn't worth it to me.

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Facebook has once again changed some features on their site. Now, you can set your profile to -- NOT letting your friends see who you have as friends (like before). So, your friends wouldn't even know WHO you know. You can group your patients into one category who may ONLY see limited information (including your pictures, wall posts). Facebook will be around for a long time, it allows people more control over their info. I just hope no one successfully hacks into their system, I'm sure a lot of people put their WHOLE lives on their profiles!

The funny thing is, things are NOT always what they seem. I know a lot of people who seem happy in their pics and portray themselves as "happy/content"... but if you know their real lives, they're far from it. Pretty sad really. Oh, I know, everyone's got problems (it's called living :)) -- the trick is... just try to lessen them, AND stay away from nutjobs!

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Specializes in LTC, Acute care.

Thank you to OP for posting this, it made me go look at my FB account and put my privacy settings to use. I usually do a FB clean-up once in a while, this entails logging on and deleting people on my friend's list that I haven't spoken to/poked/ liked anything they have or posted and people who have done no such thing to me. In other words, people who have not been in touch though their pictures are there as my friends.

Having said that, I don't think I'll ever add a patient as a friend on FB. If we see outside the hospital, we can share greetings and move along but other than that count me off. But then, to each his/her own...

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I usually do a FB clean-up once in a while, this entails logging on and deleting people on my friend's list that I haven't spoken to/poked/ liked anything they have or posted and people who have done no such thing to me. In other words, people who have not been in touch though their pictures are there as my friends.

Lol, yea. . . I have to agree with you on this one. I suppose I have to delete several people on my list. I have different categories on mine. I don't even know why I approved some of them, just because I once knew them or I am related to them? A few people I don't particularly care for -- I'm friends with (just because I'm related to them by law or soon-to-be? haha) --- even people I haven't spoken to (and not really know now) for over fifteen years are on there! :uhoh3:

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Specializes in Home Health, Nursing Education.

There is also a setting where you can select that people cannot friend request you. I forget the details around it, but it takes away the entire option on your page.

The most complete thing is to search her and block her. ;) This way she cant even find you and you can avoid the uncomfortable situation from the get go.

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Specializes in Health Information Management.

I'll play Cassandra one last time and then let it go. I'm disturbed by many posters' emphasis on just relying on Facebook's privacy settings to resolve the issue of whether to friend patients. Look, it is to Facebook's benefit to have its users allow as much information as possible to be public and readily available to advertisers. The recent heavy-handed changes pushing you to "link" your profile data are a good example of this. So it may not be the best idea to simply trust that you can accept patients as friends but just control what they see; when your interests as a user collide with Facebook's need to boost its revenue potential and keep advertisers from putting more $$ into Twitter, guess which side wins?

Here's another link explaining the ramifications of the changes: http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-10413317-250.html

I hope those of you who read this will investigate this issue further. I would hate to see anyone from this site end up burned as a result of lack of information on the topic.

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I have been taking care of one certain patient for over two years now. I had formed a relationship with this patient and the family and had accepted friend requests from them on FB. Recently this patient passed away and it broke my heart. I had posted on Facebook about how losing a patient never got easier, but did NOT mention the patients name. This family was so greatful of all the care and love I had showed to their loved one and under that post THEY mentioned his name. Now I am being investigated for HIPPA violation. Has anyone had this happen? The family has written a letter and even willing to stand up for me to prevent harsh punishment such as being fired or losing my license. Again, I (the nurse) did NOT mention the patients name and as a matter of fact made the statement that would apply to ANY patient that I had taken care of that had passed away.

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