Mayo Clinic to launch center for social media

The University of Michigan is not the only health system strutting its IT savvy. The Mayo Clinic is launching a Center for Social Media to speed development of social media tools for its own use and to help other facilities in their efforts to connect patients and doctors online. 

The Mayo Clinic already boasts 60,000 followers on Twitter, a medical provider channel on YouTube and several successful blogs, says sister publication FierceHealth IT. Lee Aase, manager of syndications and social media at Mayo, says he sees "immense interest from clinical departments--they want to be able to harness these tools to do their business," in the Wall Street Journal Health Blog.

Among the Center for Social Media services planned are online conferences and other events in which attendees learn from Mayo's experience and from each other. Such resources as manuals, books, policies and guidelines are planned, as is training for healthcare employees through webinars, in-person and on-site workshops and boot camps. An online curriculum also is planned for self-paced learning and review. Mayo will also make available consulting and coaching services to help organizations align social media strategies with business goals, as well as advising on planning and conducting outcomes research.

- here's Mayo's release
- see the article
- visit the website for Mayo's center 
- read the Wall Street Journal Health Blog interview

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