Using social media in healthcare

The Mayo Clinic

The world-famous Mayo Clinic in Minnesota is set to launch a new Center for Social Media in a bid to use networking systems to accelerate effective social media use at the clinic - as well as for hospitals, medical professionals and patients worldwide.

It will be part of the Mayo Clinic Health Social Media Network, a service that will provide access to tools, resources and guidance for organizations and individuals wanting to apply social media in health and healthcare.

According to the organization, this will include;

• Training for healthcare employees through webinars, in-person and on-site workshops and boot camps, and an online curriculum for self-paced learning and review
• Consulting and coaching to help organizations align social media strategies with business goals, as well as advising on planning and conducting outcomes research
• Conferences and other events that bring people together to learn from Mayo's experience and from each other
• Resources, including tool-kits, manuals, books, white papers, policies and guidelines

Using social media tools to get the best information

In a statement, the Mayo Clinic' resident and CEO John Noseworthy, MD said, "Mayo Clinic believes individuals have the right and responsibility to advocate for their own health, and that it is our responsibility to help them use social media tools to get the best information, connect with providers and with each other and inspire healthy choices,"

"Through this center we intend to lead the healthcare community in applying these revolutionary tools to spread knowledge and encourage collaboration among providers, improving healthcare quality everywhere."

With social media getting into every business and industry sector, healthcare social media has the potential to expand the reach of word-of-mouth news as well as treatments.

Lee Aase, who is one of the leaders of the new social media centre said, "We see immense opportunities to use internal social networking tools for collaboration among our employees to improve patient care, education, research and administration,"

"As we find new applications, we plan to conduct research into their effects so we can measure any cost savings, efficiency gains and improved effectiveness. And when we do, we'll be sharing those findings externally to help the whole health system improve."

Mayo Clinic is a not-for-profit medical practice dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of virtually every type of complex illness. It has clinic and hospital services at its locations in Rochester, Minn.; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Phoenix and Scottsdale, Ariz.

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