University of Florida Health (UF Health) is a medical network associated with the University of Florida. It includes two academic hospitals – UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville and UF Health Jacksonville – and several other hospitals and facilities in North Florida. It used to be known as Shands Healthcare and UF&Shands. The network was named to the U.S. News & World Report's 2015 list of the nation's top 50 hospitals, and was named the #1 hospital in Florida in 2021. History William A. Shands was a Florida state Senator, elected from the 32nd District in the mid-1940s. Shands was recruited to the effort to create a teaching hospital in the Gainesville area, though he at first considered that a larger city might be a better site, and was instrumental in obtaining state funding. In 1956, the University of Florida Colleges of Medicine and Nursing opened; in 1958, the UF Teaching Hospital followed. It was renamed in 1965 to recognize Shands's efforts to W. A. Shands Teaching Hospital and Clinics. The institution later became Shands Hospital, part of the Shands HealthCare network. In 1969, the UF College of Medicine established a satellite campus in Jacksonville at Duval Medical Center; this was renamed University Hospital in 1971. In 1999, both University Hospital and another Jacksonville hospital, Methodist Medical Center, were merged into Shands HealthCare as Shands Jacksonville, which included a hospital, associated clinics and the university campus. The complex was renamed UF Health at Jacksonville in 2013, with the hospital itself being named UF Health Jacksonville. The UF network purchased Alachua General Hospital in east Gainesville from Santa Fe Health Care in 1996, changing the name to Shands AGH. Prior to being purchased by Santa Fe in 1983, AGH was owned by the county. On Nov. 1, 2009, Shands HealthCare closed Shands AGH due to budget cuts. The system simultaneously opened a cancer hospital south of its main location on the UF campus. The network was renamed University of Florida Health in May 2013. University of Florida Health comprises multiple distinct legal entities, the largest being UF Heath Shands Gainesville and UF Health Jacksonville. In 2020 UF Health acquired two new hospitals: The Villages® Regional and Leesburg Regional. In 2021 UF Health acquired Scripps Research's Florida branch in Jupiter, FL. Facilities The following tertiary facilities represent the core of UF Health's academic, teaching, trauma, specialty and research-related hospitals. With campuses in