<p>"UF&Shands: the science of hope."</p>
<p>If you've watched TV, listened to daytime radio or thumbed through a newspaper during the first two weeks of January, you've probably seen one of the new ads for Shands HealthCare and the University of Florida's Health Science Center.</p>
<p>Twenty-four months after Shands launched its initial campaign linking UF and Shands with a prominent ampersand, there's a new series of ads out there.</p>
<p>This time the campaign touches on heart care for premature infants, proton beam therapy and radiosurgery to treat cancers, promising research into Alzheimer's disease, and other medical breakthroughs.</p>
<p>"The message that we try to convey is that if you are a patient with a heart condition, you want to be cared for in a place with specific people, programs and sometimes even specific facilities for treating heart disease, not just the general hospital down the road," said Dr. Doug Barrett, UF's senior vice president for health affairs.</p>
<p>It's about the power of teamwork, according to Wanda English, director of marketing and public relations for Shands HealthCare.</p>
<p>"We found that when consumers saw either of the brands singularly ? UF or Shands ? they had very positive associations with the name," she said. "When you put them together, it was an opportunity to focus on the medical excellence of Shands and the University of Florida."</p>
<p>Barrett said that whether you are a patient from Orlando, Palatka or east Gainesville, you are likely to view UF and Shands as one and the same thing.</p>
<p>"Those of us who live and work there know that they are separate institutions," he added. "What they share is a commitment to work together toward quality health care."</p>
<p>The ads are appearing in regional editions of several national magazines, according to English.</p>
<p>While you're looking for tips on planting a spring garden, you might come across one of the print ads in Southern Living. Glued to the TV on a rainy Saturday, you might see a commercial in the Gainesville, Jacksonville and Ocala areas. There are radio segments, too.</p>
<p>The new commercials and print ads move forward from the 2004 campaign by talking about the attributes that define academic medicine: depth of specialists, latest technologies, having access to the most recent research advances and medical breakthroughs.</p>
<p>"This campaign, while it is an evolution of 'the science of hope,' is to help consumers understand what academic medicine is and what it does," English said.</p>
<p>And unlike UF's "Gator Nation" campaign, no parodies have turned up on YouTube ? yet.</p>
<p>Lewis Communications, an advertising agency out of Birmingham, Ala., was selected to shape the campaign after a national search. English declined to discuss the cost of the two campaigns, which is being borne by Shands, saying that the information is proprietary.</p>
<p>Shands may be paying for the campaign, but it is benefitting both sides, according to Barrett.</p>
<p>"Shands is a hospital. It is empty beds and sheets without the medical staff of UF physicians," he said.</p>
<p>"When faced with a difficult medical decision, we want people to know there are great resources right here in their backyard," English said.</p>
<p>The ads are aimed at women, an acknowledgement that they are the major health care decision makers in most households, she added. They draw on the results of 3,600 consumer surveys and 1,000 surveys from referring physicians.</p>
<p>The name brands of Johns Hopkins or Stanford, both academic medical centers, have come to represent a measure of excellence for those seeking health care, Barrett said. The goal is to do the same with the branding of UF&Shands.</p>
<p>"I don't think the University of Florida's effort to achieve a top 10 ranking (among public universities) will be affected by this campaign," he admitted. "But I do believe that there's a growing recognition that when you come to get health care at a Shands facility, you are getting the talents of the best in academic medicine."</p>