Mayo Clinic to open social media center

According to the StarTribune:

Mayo Clinic is opening a Center for Social Media to train other health care organizations to use Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to connect patients and doctors. The new center will run workshops, offer consulting and host conferences.

Here are some of the specifics:

• Mayo Clinic is opening a Center for Social Media to train other health care organizations to use Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to connect patients and doctors.
• The center will employ about eight people and have $800,000 a year in initial funding.
• In addition to marketing, Aase said he hopes to explore using social media to deliver continuing medical education courses for physicians and also help Mayo's 56,000 employees communicate better among themselves.

There's definitely a need for hospitals and health care professionals to get more involved in social media. In fact, they need to develop policies and strategies that will ultimately take their organizations to new levels. I like the idea of using social media to deliver continuing medical education or CME courses, but unless they're strictly talking about podcasting technology, they'll be facing many challenges because of the rules and regulations that govern electronic CME (computer-based continuing education for physicians). Regardless, I think it will be great to see doctors and hospitals using social media to engage their patients and to communicate among colleagues.