AURORA, Colo. (Nov. 30, 2006) – The University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center’s public relations staff won seven awards at the 2006 Colorado Healthcare Communicators Gold Leaf Awards Dinner. The annual event honors those who have done outstanding work over the past year in health care public relations, marketing and communications. Additionally, J. John Cohen MD, PhD, of the UCDHSC School of Medicine was named the 2006 Colorado Healthcare Communicator of the Year.
The annual CHC Gold Leaf awards are given in fourteen categories including advertising, collateral, media relations, crisis communications and writing. UCDHSC and O’Brien Advertising were the top winners in 2006, each taking home seven awards. The awards ceremony and dinner was held Nov. 2 at the Marriott City Center in Denver.
UCDHSC won the bronze in the in the Media Relations (A) Proactive Story Placements category for the “Ailing for Good Health Care” campaign, which raised awareness of the dearth of health care in rural areas. A second bronze for proactive story placements was awarded for “A Positive Pulse on Cardiac and Vascular Care,” a push to raise awareness of the University of Colorado Hospital’s new Cardiac and Vascular Center.
The UCDHSC public relations team also won both the silver and bronze leaf awards in the Media Relations (B) Crisis Communications category for managing stories which could potentially have had a negative impact.
Two silver awards were given in Special Events (A) over $10,000. The public relations teams from UCDHSC and University of Colorado Hospital won for “Leading the Fight Against Addiction – CeDAR,” a comprehensive internal and external event to celebrate and highlight the opening of the hospital’s rehabilitation facility. UCDHSC also was recognized for “From Vision to Reality,” an event including political and university dignitaries who celebrated the groundbreaking of seven buildings on the UCDHSC Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colo .
UCDHSC also won the bronze in Special Events (B) under $10,000 for “Moral Debate, Medical Dilemmas and Bioethics,” which celebrated the groundbreaking of the Fulginiti Pavilion for Bioethics and Humanities on the UCDHSC Anschutz Medical Campus.
In addition, Dr. J. John Cohen, professor in the department of immunology at the UCDHSC School of Medicine, was named the 2006 Colorado Healthcare Communicator of the Year for his creation of the CU Mini Med School and his work to create Denver’s Café Scientific – two programs that reach across education lines to teach any person that wants to learn more about medicine and science.
For more information about the Colorado Healthcare Communicators organization, visit www.healthcarecommunicators.org.
The University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center is one of three universities in the University of Colorado system. Located in Denver and Aurora, Colo., the center includes schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and dentistry, a graduate school and a teaching hospital. For more information, visit the Web site at www.uchsc.edu or the UCDHSC Newsroom at http://www.uchsc.edu/news.