Interviews and Media Escorts

Setting Up Interviews

We ask reporters to contact our office when they are interested in locating a source for a story. Our Public Relations staff can save you time by quickly identifying the best source and facilitating contact.

We frequently arrange for patients to participate in interviews and to be photographed. However, patients must agree to be interviewed and photographed and must sign a formal consent form coordinated by the PR team. Please help us protect our patients’ privacy by not interviewing them or photographing them until we obtain written consent.

Visiting Our Facilities

Shands HealthCare and the Public Relations department strictly adhere to federal guidelines regarding patient confidentiality matters as outlined by the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). To protect our patients’ privacy, we require all reporters and photographers visiting our facilities to be escorted by a Public Relations staff member or Shands representative designated by Public Relations. Please call us if you plan to visit the campus.

While in these facilities, media representatives must wear official press identification issued by their news organization. This escort policy extends to members of volunteer/visitor groups wishing to take photographs/video while onsite, with intent to share the photographs/video upon departure from the facility.

Media access may be limited or denied to any area of a Shands HealthCare-owned or -operated facility or clinical practice at the discretion of patients’ healthcare teams or individual physicians.

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