Social Media Networking Policy and Guidelines

Policy Page:

Social Media Networking Policy and Guidelines

This document includes UW Medicine’s policy limiting the use of social media in hospital and clinic spaces, institutional policies that apply to the use of social media and best practice guidelines for UW Medicine faculty, staff, trainees, students, volunteers and others who perform work for UW Medicine (hereafter referred to as workforce members). Social media includes text, images, audio and video communicated via such tools as:

• Blogs and micro-blogs,
• Social networks;
• Professional networking sites
• Profession-based social networks;
• Video sharing;
• Audio sharing;
• Photo sharing;
• Social bookmarking;
• Public comment sections on webpages (such as those for online news sites);
• User created web pages; and
• Any other internet-based social media application similar in purpose or function to those applications described above.

To ensure your awareness of the most comprehensive and current list of social networking platforms and sites, visit the following website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites.

Please consult your entity-specific social media policies in addition to this document.

Policy Outline:

I. Background
II. Definition
III. Policy Statement: Limiting Use of Social Media in Hospital and Clinic Spaces
IV. Guidelines: Social Networking Guidelines
V. Summary of Other Relevant University of Washington (UW) and UW Medicine Policies
VI. Additional Reading

Policy Resources:

Policy PDF