A new round of federal funding will help create new Tampa healthcare jobs and make the jobs of existing medical professionals easier.

The University of South Florida Health department recently received a $5.9 million grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to expand the PaperFree Florida project, which will help doctors in 20 counties make the move to electronic health records.

"The University of South Florida is the leader in healthcare and technology in the State of Florida and now is one of just a handful of universities across the entire country that is providing this leadership role," Rep. Kathy Castor said.

PaperFree Florida will help doctors transform the way they care for patients by not only improving healthcare delivery, but also helping the Tampa Bay area's economy.

"The revolution is starting here in Tampa Bay," Dr. Stephen Klasko, dean of the USF College of Medicine and CEO of USF Health, said. "That revolution is about transformation and job creation. Transforming health care into a non-paper, decision-supported way of doing business so that ... we're not writing things down on pieces of paper and hoping that people get it right. It's about quality and safety and it’s about job creation."

The funding will be used in part to hire and train 100 "e-ambassadors" during the next four years to visit doctors' offices within the 20-county radius. They will help doctors use and adopt electronic health records, acting as a resource to make their transition to modern records easier.

Electronic health records improve patient safety and make healthcare more convenient for patients by allowing for such services as delivering electronic prescriptions directly to pharmacies. Although doctors have been slow to move to this technology, the new "e-ambassadors" will help bridge that gap.

USF Health launched PaperFree Tampa Bay, a pilot version of PaperFree Florida, one year ago. As part of that pilot program, medical students visited doctors in Tampa Bay and taught them how to use electronic records successfully.