Social networking is taking off and experts say hospitals shouldn't be left behind.

According to research by Ed Bennett, a Web strategist at the University of Maryland Medical System, the pace for hospitals using social networking has started to pick up.

Bennett keeps a blog called "Found in Cache" in which he keeps a running tally of hospitals who are using social networking.

Bennett says hospitals have YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and blog accounts for a variety of reasons, but the main reason is "they are recognizing that these types of sites are becoming a very common way for people to interact with each other and the costs associated with the sites are fairly low."

Bennett says hospitals are using social networking very conservatively and this always goes back to privacy issues. Currently hospitals are posting announcements and press releases.

Arik Hanson, who writes a blog called "Communications Conversations," says social media could even be used to save lives.

 "What if, to complement our existing healthcare model, we used these tools to help us develop a completely new model of care? One that would not only be more convenient and potentially more effective than the care models of today  -  it might actually cost less... I'm convinced we can create a model that will allow us to provide quality healthcare outcomes for our patients at less cost," he says.

Hospitals are also using these tools for brand monitoring where they track what people are saying about them.

According to Tom Stitt, managing director, for aperial, a site that focuses on planning and building open source social networks for healthcare organizations, people are using social networking to talk about hospitals.

Stitt has been collecting data on Twitter messages that mention hospitals and TV, wireless networks (for patients and visitors), cellular phones, food, and parking. These topics are among the most frequently remembered experiences of patients, families and visitors he says. He also points out that it has become more common now for a hospital to be the choice of the patient rather than the provider so there is more shopping around for the hospital.

Over the last six months, Stitt found 240 Twitter comments involving wireless and hospitals.

Stitt believes if hospitals were monitoring what was being said about them they could easily realize more information concerning patient satisfaction.

Some hospitals such as Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic and Detroit-based Henry Ford are ahead of the curve. Mayo Clinic's new blog, Sharing Mayo Clinic, encourages patients and employees to share their feedback, which Bennett believes is a shift in the way hospitals have traditionally been using blogs.