ROCHESTER, MN – The new Center for Social Media, slated to launch at Mayo Clinic in late September, seeks to accelerate effective social media use at the clinic – as well as for hospitals, medical professionals and patients worldwide.

The Mayo Clinic Health Social Media Network, a service of the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, will provide access to tools, resources and guidance for organizations and individuals wanting to apply social media in health and healthcare including:

• 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 toolkits, manuals, books, white papers, policies and guidelines

"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," explains Mayo Clinic president and CEO John Noseworthy, MD. "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."

In addition to reaching out, the center staff will work with Mayo Clinic colleagues to find new and innovative ways to apply social media tools throughout the Mayo system.

"Staff at many hospitals wanting to get involved in social media have pointed to Mayo Clinic's activity and experience to help make the case for engagement with their senior leaders," says Victor Montori, MD, a Mayo Clinic endocrinologist and the center's interim medical director. "Some have even consulted with us informally and asked for advice on implementation. One of our goals for the center is to provide a mechanism for this consultation and sharing, so we can help colleagues in healthcare everywhere break down the barriers to involvement."

"We see immense opportunities to use internal social networking tools for collaboration among our employees to improve patient care, education, research and administration," added Lee Aase, one of the leaders of the new center. "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."

An advisory team with representatives from throughout Mayo Clinic and an external board of thought leaders will help center leadership identify and provide resources for the most relevant projects. A related international network organized by the center will gather broader input from the healthcare community and disseminate resources and research findings.

"The social media revolution is vastly expanding the reach of word-of-mouth," Aase said. The center will accelerate adoption of social media in healthcare, first at Mayo and then within healthcare. Through this work, Mayo Clinic looks to help improve healt care literacy, healthcare delivery and population health worldwide."

The network will be officially launched in late September, in conjunction with the Social Media Summit at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., which is held Sept. 27 to 29.