Westwood ? A $7.5 million renovation, a re-elected executive board and the unveiling of the hospital’s 2008 advertising campaign dominated the Kansas University Hospital Authority board’s bi-monthly meeting Tuesday.

What did not dominate the agenda, however, was the affiliation between the hospital and KU Medical Center.

“This is the first agenda in the last year or year and a half that has nothing regarding affiliations on it,” said a visibly pleased Dr. George Farha, chairman of the authority board.

Farha and the other incumbents were re-elected to their officer positions, as well as to the board’s executive and nominating committees. KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway is the authority board’s vice chairman and a member of the executive committee, and maintained both of those roles.

After an hour in executive session, the hospital board also approved the renovation of the hospital’s former emergency room for about $7.5 million. The space, vacated when the emergency room was moved to the hospital’s new heart center a few years ago, had been used for short-term storage and as a home for programs, including bone marrow transplants.

Now, the space will be home to a new gastrointestinal lab, said KU Hospital spokesman Dennis McCulloch.

Hospital leaders also got a look at the hospital’s 2008 advertising campaign, which is focused on KU Hospital providing an uncommon level of service to those who come through the hospital doors.

The ad campaign, which features four of the hospital’s top doctors, discusses the major milestones in medicine that have been reached through medicine and research conducted at the KU Medical Center and KU Hospital.

The campaign directs people to look at www.uncommondoctors.com, a Web site designed to promote the works of individual specialists at the hospital.