Digital Literacy v’s Digital Professionalism

What differentiates digital literacy from digital professionalism?

Digital literacy is the how, the basics of learning your A, B, C’s, forming words and sentences, digital professionalism would be the way in which you conduct yourself while using this new found knowledge of words and sentences. Digital literacy has been described as the capabilities of a person living, learning, working, participating and thriving in a digital society. Is there any choice but to live in a digital society today? I believe it would be very challenging given the digital skill required to access something as simple as your own bank account.

In stating this, is it not then part of our digital professionalism to be digitally literate? Our own responsibility to continue our professional development incorporating this ‘new’ wave of technology which will weave it’s way into the majority of our healthcare system. RCN published a document in 2019 promoting ‘every nurse an ‘e–nurse‘ and introducing the 6 domains required of future nurses.

Digital professionalism should now be firmly within our vocabulary given the rapid pace at which teaching, patient reviews, EPR’s, online prescribing and administering is progressing. This is unfortunately not the case, certainly in nursing. Should nurses be expected to know how to ‘be digitally professional’ without further training. An article published in Digital Health

in 2019, long preceding the pandemic recommended that digital health should be a part of mandatory training and imbedded within the curricula for healthcare professionals.

Who or what should be driving the digital professional agenda?

Further to reading the pre-pandemic recommendations of the RCN and the article in digital health, the most recent NMC Standard Framework for Nursing and Midwifery Education and the NMC Standard for Competence for Registered Nurses published in 2018, both which form the basis for undergraduate nursing education programmes across the UK for the next 6 years – not one document suggests or provides guidance for digital professionalism education in undergraduate nursing. Therefore with the pace at which this is becoming a prevalent is it the responsibility of the employer (namely the NHS) to provide such education? Is it an expectation that newly qualified nurses will be digitally literate and therefore ‘savvy’ in digital professionalism. Merging their learned knowledge on professionalism and accumulated digital know how together?

Is digital professionalism a legitimate need?

With the so called ‘digital natives‘ becoming of age to be the predominant population within the workforce in the very near future, I would be inclined to say yes there is a legitimate need. Ellaway et al (2015) suggests that the widespread use of social media has blurred the boundaries between our professional and personal lives. With the constant access and popularity of connecting on social media, are the ‘digital natives’ desensitised to the implication of their presence online and what it could mean for their professional profile.

It is a ‘normal’ day to day practice to be ‘online’, when it is transferred to the workplace, are professionals aware of their digital footprint and traceability of their data, either within a workplace eg. EPR’s or on social media?