In our annual HealthLeaders 20, we profile individuals who are changing healthcare for the better. Some are longtime industry fixtures; others would clearly be considered outsiders. Some are revered; others would not win many popularity contests. They are making a difference in healthcare. This is the story of Lee Aase.
This profile was published in the December, 2014 issue of HealthLeaders magazine.
"What really drove me into it was the way that these tools make communication free and almost effortless."
If Lee Aase, the Mayo Clinic's first social media manager and now director of its four-year-old Center for Social Media, had his way, this profile would probably only be 140 characters, the maximum length of a tweet. But his pioneering work at the Rochester, Minnesota–based healthcare system deserves a longer description.
The Mayo Clinic is, in many ways, a gold standard that healthcare leaders look to when they want to improve clinical quality, patient experience, and medical outcomes. Patients from around the world also put the nonprofit healthcare system on a pedestal for its team-based approach to helping them get better. In the 24/7 world of social media, too, the Mayo Clinic continues to retain its reputation of doing things well.
With such a strong, recognized brand, Mayo could have passed on jumping into social media. The name is so well-known, so well-respected, that it likely would have survived an absence on Facebook and Twitter. But Mayo chose to participate, largely because Aase saw the potential for social media to continue the system's mission of patient engagement and education.
"We're in our 150th year now, and our founders, Dr. Will and Dr. Charlie [brothers William Mayo, MD, and Charles Mayo, MD] had this tradition where one would stay home and one would travel around to teach and learn," says Aase. "They'd bring back best practices and they would take what they were learning to others, so this really isn't all that different. Instead of traveling by plane and by ship, we travel through cyberspace."
Aase arrived at Mayo in 2000, when only 41.5% of U.S. households had Internet access, which was mostly used to send and receive email. Even then, Mayo had an Internet presence, but Aase describes the website, then known as Mayo Health Oasis, as basic, like most early websites. "Back then, it was a consumer health information website; it wasn't interactive, it was, 'We have knowledge that we can share with other people and people come from around the country, around the world to see us in person, and this is a good way to make that more accessible,' " he says.
Aase says like Mayo, he was also an early adopter of technology, buying an Apple IIe and tinkering with computer programming because of the common problems it could solve. "I remember hanging out in my dorm in my first year in college and having to wait for the one phone that was on the floor to be able to make a collect call home," he says. "What really drove me into it was the way that these tools make communication free and almost effortless."
Effortless is how Aase and his 10-member social media team try to make the learning process for physicians, who may be interested in using social media but are skittish because of privacy rules that guard patient identity. "Part of what we do is make it as easy as possible to get engaged," he says.
A doctor's first foray into the Mayo Clinic's social media space—which includes a major presence on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest—is doing an interview with a simple flip camera that Aase posts to the Mayo Clinic's YouTube channel. "We're asking them to do the same thing they do a dozen times a day as they talk to patients," says Aase. "One of the concerns physicians have about doing media interviews is being taken out of context, or misquoted, and what they really like about the YouTube videos is that we don't have sound bite limits. They find that comforting, and once they've shared their knowledge, it gives us a resource we can put out on the social channels that could be helpful to patients."
The Mayo Clinic's social media presence looms large. The videos on its YouTube channel have received more than 14 million views; in addition, the health system has more than 900,000 followers on Twitter, approximately 543,000 Facebook likes, and some 13,000 followers on Pinterest.
These impressive numbers are due in some measure to Aase's vision, though he gives credit to the Mayo Clinic's President and CEO John Noseworthy, MD, and Chief Administrative Officer and Vice President Emeritus Shirley Weis for supporting the development of the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media in 2010.
Like Mayo's commitment to sharing best medical practices with peers, the MCCSM is a resource-rich hub for any hospital, healthcare system, or healthcare leader who wants to participate in social media but is unsure how to do so. Aase has established a membership roster for the MCCSM's social media health network that includes 111 organizations, ranging from large academic medical centers such as Vanderbilt University Medical Center to small, independent hospitals such as the 39-bed Yampa Valley Medical Center in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Members of this social network get access to real-world case studies, tools, classes, and advice from their peers.
"In one sense, we're air cover," says Aase. "Excuse the military term, but organizations would go to their leadership and say, 'Mayo Clinic has a Facebook page.' They are using us as part of their argument to engage in social media. I think that provides some reassurance."
The responsibility of making sure that the Mayo Clinic brand retains its polish as a healthcare and social media leader in a space where there are so many opportunities to stumble is not lost on Aase.
"Just as our founders had this commitment to outreach, we feel both very fortunate and responsible that we want to do it right," says Aase, in just 125 characters with spaces. :-)
Jacqueline Fellows is a contributing writer at HealthLeaders Media.