Social Media in Patients' Self-Management of Chronic Disease: the Role of Nurses as boundary Spanners

This paper presents research-in-progress of the adoption and use of social media as part of patients’ self-management of their chronic disease. The purpose is to investigate the social and organizational challenges that social media bring to the healthcare setting. We focus on how nurses can act as mediators between the formal healthcare institution and the informal setting in which patients engage via social media. We discuss how the use of social media influences nurses’ professional identity, roles and responsibilities. Preliminary findings and existing literature point to two issues of interest: 1) The inclusion of the informal system of self-management and use of social media into the formal healthcare system and 2) The development of the role of nurses as boundary spanners. We wish to pursue these issues in a three-year research project, conducting in-depth case studies in 10 General Practices to investigate the collaborative partnership between patients and nurses.