Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida recently received a  $265,000 grant from the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation to help it pay for electronic health record systems in seven facilities. This new funding caps off the Florida organization's $900,000 fundraising campaign to invest in the new technology.

"Electronic health records will help our Planned Parenthood provide better quality of care for our patients, improve our ability to conduct billing for medical services, and improve the ability of our clinicians and other health center staff to access patient records throughout our service area," said Planned Parenthood CEO Barbara Zdravecky.

In fact, Planned Parenthood organizations in Utah and Washington state have already deployed these health IT tools and have found patients receive important test results sooner, such as those for sexually transmitted diseases, breast and cervical cancer. The transition from paper records to electronic documents is expected to be completed by the summer of 2013.

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