Does dyeing your hair increase your risk of cancer? Does a heart attack feel like an elephant is sitting on your chest? Will you be less active after joint replacement surgery?

1. For Immediate Release December 1, 2015
Contact: Damian Becker, Manager of Media Relations
(516) 377-5370
South Nassau Launches ‘Truth in Medicine’ Ad Campaign To Help Health Care
Consumers Decipher Fact from Fiction
Oceanside, NY – Does dyeing your hair increase your risk of cancer? Does a heart attack feel like an
elephant is sitting on your chest? Will you be less active after joint replacement surgery? Is having a leaky
bladder during exercise normal? Do older adults need less sleep?
The answers to those questions, which are posed in a new, multi-faceted South Nassau Communities
Hospital advertising campaign called ‘Truth in Medicine’, can be found at wherequalitymatters.org. In addition
to addressing those specific questions, the site also provides consumers with guidance about where to turn for
information and medical care.
The new ‘Truth in Medicine’ ad campaign includes a full complement of strategically placed cable
television and print ads in Newsday, the Herald Community Newspapers and select Anton newspapers as well
as other local newspapers serving the area. The unconventional ads feature provocative full page photos – such
as a woman who has died her hair green – and poses a question relevant to the photo. Consumers are then urged
to go to the hospital’s ‘wherequalitymatters.org’ webpage to view a short video featuring a South Nassau
physician – an expert in that area - who provides the answer.
The physician experts featured in the videos are (click on the questions to view their answers):
• Rajiv Datta, MD, FACS, FRCS, FICS, chair of the department of surgery and medical director of the
Gertrude & Louis Feil Cancer Center, Does dyeing your hair increase your risk of cancer?
• Jason Freeman, MD, director of interventional cardiology, Does a heart attack feel like an elephant is
sitting on your chest?
• Alan Garely, chair of obstetrics and gynecology and director of urogynecology, Is having a leaky
bladder during exercise normal?
• Bradley Gerber, MD, chief of joint replacement surgery, Will you be less active after joint replacement
surgery?
• Rupinder P. Kaur, D.O., geriatric medicine, Do older adults need less sleep?
News From:

2. During the past year, South Nassau has implemented a series of branding ads aimed at increasingly the
profile of the South Shore hospital, which is the only Level II Trauma Center on the South Shore of Nassau
County. The campaigns have spotlighted the national healthcare industry awards that South Nassau has earned
for quality and safety including:
 ‘A’ for patient safety from The Leapfrog Group;
 American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer Outstanding Achievement Award;
 Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of approval as a Top Performer on Key Quality Measures, including heart
attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care
 Home Health Quality Improvement Gold Medal
 Named to Home Care Elite list 10th
consecutive year;
 New York State Department of Health’s Perinatal Quality Collaborative Obstetrical Improvement
Quality Improvement Award;
 American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®–Target: Stroke
Honor Roll-Elite Quality Achievement Award;
 American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Foundation Get With The Guidelines®–
Heart Failure Silver-Plus Quality Achievement Award.
The campaign is a follow up to a multi-month advertising campaign launched last April that highlighted
the award-winning, standard-setting healthcare services provided by South Nassau and introduced the hospital’s
new logo. Wax Custom Communications, an award-winning Miami, FL-based multi-channel marketing firm
specializing in health care, created the ads for both campaigns.
Designated a Magnet® hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), South Nassau®
Communities Hospital is one of the region’s largest hospitals, with 455 beds, more than 900 physicians and
3,000 employees. Located in Oceanside, NY, the hospital is an acute-care, not-for-profit teaching hospital that
provides state-of-the-art care in cardiac, oncologic, orthopedic, bariatric, pain management, mental health and
emergency services. In addition to its extensive outpatient specialty centers, South Nassau provides emergency
and elective angioplasty, and is the only hospital on Long Island with the Novalis Tx™ and Gamma Knife®
radiosurgery technologies. South Nassau is a designated Stroke Center by the New York State Department of
Health and Comprehensive Community Cancer Center by the American College of Surgeons and is an
accredited center of the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Association and Quality Improvement Program. In
addition, the hospital has been awarded the Joint Commission’s gold seal of approval as a Top Performer on
Key Quality Measures, including heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care; and disease-specific
care for hip and joint replacement, wound care and end-stage renal disease. For more information, visit
www.southnassau.org.

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