Finland Patient portal

In Finland, the implementation of the national Kanta services second phase was carried out step by step from May 2010 to December 2017. My Kanta Pages, launched in 2010, is an online service where citizens can browse their own health information recorded in the Prescription Centre and the Patient Data Repository regardless of whether the healthcare services, they had used were public or private. It is the patient accessible national electronic health records in Finland.

A nationally shared of patient portal, widely accessible patient portal system has powerful symbolic meaning; it may or may not be perceived as improving quality and safety of care. Alternatively, a patient portal can be seen as a threat to patient confidentiality or the traditional role of the physician or the nurse. Online e-services in healthcare and social welfare services are usually patient portals that are owned by healthcare organizations. However, introduction of a patient portal alone does not guarantee its wide use among patients with a diagnosis.

Kanta services is the name of the Finnish national digital data system services that form a unique service entity based on legislation effective since July 2007. The current main services are described in Picture 1. Since the Finnish national patient portal does not have a stand-alone data of its own, information from community pharmacies (medicine dispensations) and e-prescriptions registered in healthcare are shown in the patient portal together with health data registered to the Patient Data Repository.

The Prescription Centre is in mandatory use nationwide since January 2017 whereas the Patient Data Repository is in use in Mainland Finland excluding the Ã…land Islands.

All Finnish residents with a Finnish personal identity number and an access to electronic identification are able to use the patient portal. With the help of the patient portal, the users can monitor the retrieval and submission of one’s own information, view e-prescriptions and medication purchases, request prescription medication renewal, view personal health data, give consents and consent restrictions to share one’s e-prescription and patient data, and set up a living will and/or organ donation testament.

Parents and guardians can view medical records of their children younger than 10 years of age. All healthcare providers who use electronic patient record systems are obliged by law to send prescription and health data to the Kanta services and these data are visible in the patient portal. Thus, information from organizations that do not use electronic patient records, are not visible in the patient portal.

Healthcare professionals record data in their electronic patient record systems, which transmit these data encrypted in a standardized format into the Kanta services. Otherwise, the professionals can access their own health data as citizens do via the patient portal. Practically the entire electronic patient journals are available for patients through the patient portal. All medicine prescriptions except medicines prescribed during hospital admissions are available through the patient portal.

Patients are offered access to their own health data on a national level only in a few countries, such Finland. However, a nationally shared patient portal does not guaran-tee its wide use among patients. In addition, since Finland is the most sparsely populated EU member state, it is of utmost importance to study the geographical aspects of online services use such as the national patient portal.