Celebrating 15 years of the Kanta Services – from the first electronic prescription to international trailblazing
Kanta is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. Over the years, it has grown into a national resource that supports the development of client work in the social welfare and healthcare sector as well as various types of research.
In 2025, Kanta is a name that is familiar throughout Finland’s social welfare and healthcare services. Kanta contains more than 4.1 billion patient records on 6.8 million individuals. Professionals in the social welfare and healthcare sectors search for information via Kanta 5.8 million times per month on average.
This wasn’t always the case, however. When the development of the Kanta Services began at Kela, patients were still given paper prescriptions to take to the pharmacy.
The year 2010 marked a new beginning. It was then that the first electronic prescription was issued and the use of MyKanta began.
In 15 years, Kanta has grown into a nationwide digital services hub that attracts international attention and admiration. In the future, Kanta data will enable improvements in citizens' wellbeing in more and more areas of society.
"Data could be used to provide solutions for increasing a sense of community and inclusion. The information available in Kanta could also enable proactive measures to be taken in areas other than social welfare and healthcare. This could reduce the burden on social welfare and healthcare services."
From origins in Turku to thousands and then millions of electronic prescriptions
The creation of the Kanta Services is based on extensive expertise, cooperation and hard work – the much-talked-about “sisu”; the Finnish spirit of determination, and teamwork.
– Right from the outset, the Kanta Services were developed in a spirit of good cooperation. We realised that Finland is a world leader in doing something that has significance. That was a nice boost for our work, recalls Marina Lindgren, retired Director of Information Services at Kela. She was at the forefront of developing Kanta.
The issuing of the first electronic prescription in Turku in May 2010 was an important milestone in the development process, and a media event. Today, approximately two million prescriptions are recorded in Kanta every month.
– E-prescriptions are widely used in both public and private healthcare. Patients are free to obtain their medicine from any pharmacy. The prescription is stored and goes wherever the patient does, Lindgren explains.
Indeed, the same idea is behind the whole concept of Kanta. Client data is stored in Kanta, where it is available to professionals in real time. Client data is always available wherever the client is managing their affairs.
Data – it’s what it enables that matters
When information flows smoothly, client service processes can be improved and professionals have more time to focus on client work. This can also bring much-needed savings in an era of dwindling resources.
Customer needs are the primary driver in the development of Kanta.
– The scale of how far we can take service development is enormous. The driving forces behind this are the social welfare and healthcare professionals who recognise the challenges of information flow and information needs in their daily work, to improve things like decision-making, says Mia Mustonen, Development Manager at Kela.
Mustonen emphasises that the power of Kanta lies in how the data is utilised, not that it is recorded. The extensive amount of data stored in Kanta can already be used for purposes such as research, knowledge management, statistics, and in development and innovation activities. For example, the data can be used to develop care practices and social welfare and healthcare practices, as well as to support authorities in their decision-making.
Mustonen also points out that efforts must be made to improve the quality of data obtained from Kanta in order to derive the maximum possible benefit from it. Kela carries out this work together with its partners and stakeholders. The spirit of “sisu” and teamwork are still very much alive.
From national resource to an international trailblazer
Kanta’s impact is not limited to Finland. In the future, health data will move even more conveniently with citizens and between EU countries. The Kanta Services have served as an example in many respects for development across Europe.
- Kanta is unique as a service entity and a repository of national patient and client data. We receive international invitations to give lectures and share our views. What has been achieved with Kanta in Finland is not self-evident elsewhere. We should continue to be proud that Finland has embarked on such a comprehensive initiative, Mustonen says enthusiastically.
And there really is cause to be proud. We have come a long way in the 15 years since the first electronic prescription.
Nutritional guidelines and solutions for loneliness – how data from Kanta can be utilized in 15 years?
Mia Mustonen believes that the Kanta Services will continue to enable the utilisation of social welfare and healthcare data in a client-oriented, secure, and cost-effective manner.
In the future, data obtained from Kanta could also help in finding solutions to broad societal problems, such as loneliness.
– Data could be used to provide solutions for increasing a sense of community and inclusion. The information available in Kanta could also enable proactive measures to be taken in areas other than social welfare and healthcare, such as education, culture and business. This could reduce the burden on social welfare and healthcare services, Mustonen suggests.
Private actors could also build applications on top of the Kanta Services, enabling citizens to utilise their own wellbeing data in completely new ways.
– I believe that in the future, the role of professionals as data producers will become less important, while the roles of clients and technology will grow. In the future, Kanta data will help clients monitor and promote their wellbeing in a more comprehensive way than is currently possible. The data could be used, for example, in the preparation of personal nutritional recommendations, Mustonen explains.
– In the future, decisions regarding the use of data will continue to be made by the client, who will assess the contexts in which the data is most useful to them, she concludes.
As such, there are numerous possibilities and untapped potential in Kanta. The needs and visionary courage of citizens, social welfare and healthcare professionals, and decision-makers will determine what Kanta will look like in 15 years.