The Kanta Services are used in both public and private health care services around Finland. Kanta collects information from public and private social welfare and health care services.
What are the benefits of Kanta?
The health care professionals treating you will see information about you stored in various social welfare and health care services if you have consented to this in MyKanta. You can also grant consent to data sharing when you visit social welfare or health care services.
The transfer of information from one professional to another ensures that you receive better care and there is no need to repeat tests, for example. If your health care professional has access to the information, they have a better overall picture of your health and the medicines you are taking.
Who can see the data?
Social welfare and health care service professionals can access the data recorded about you through their client or patient information systems. The data stored in Kanta are processed in a reliable and secure manner.
Your data can only be viewed and accessed by the health care or social welfare professionals who manage your affairs. The data are only used when it is necessary in order to treat you and manage your affairs.
How do I give consent to view data?
It is up to you to determine the extent to which your social welfare and health care professionals are allowed to use the data stored about you in Kanta.
If there are errors in the data
If you notice any errors or omissions in the information shown in MyKanta, please contact the treatment unit or professional that you have dealt with directly. Social welfare and health care services are responsible for recording and correcting
For this reason, incorrect information shown in MyKanta cannot be updated or rectified by Kanta Services.
Data retention periods
Prescription and health information stored in the Kanta Services will be stored for the period specified in social welfare and health care legislation:
- prescription data will be stored for 20 years
- patient data will be stored for 12 years after the patient’s death or 120 years after the patient’s birth if there is no information on the time of death.
In social welfare and health care services and pharmacies, the data stored in Kanta will not be deleted at the client’s request, but instead will be destroyed once their statutory retention periods have expired.
What data are stored in Kanta?
The doctor, nurse or other health care professional will save information in a patient information system which is connected to the Kanta Services. You can browse this data yourself in MyKanta.
Health information recorded in Kanta includes:
- records of treatment given at a health centre or hospital
- records of dental care
- records of laboratory tests
- records of imaging examinations
- records of vaccinations
- medical certificates.
Please note that your health care service provider may not currently be able to save all of your health information in Kanta. For instance, not all service providers currently store medical certificates in Kanta.
Your health information will be transferred to Kanta from the time when the public health care centre or private medical clinic began to enter records in Kanta. Patient data cannot be entered in Kanta retroactively.
Public social welfare services already store client data in Kanta extensively. In the future, private social welfare services will also start storing information in Kanta.
A prescription is issued electronically by the doctor or other health care professional and saved in Kanta. You can see your prescription data in MyKanta.
Pharmacies also store information in Kanta when you purchase prescription medicines. For example, the pharmacy saves information about how much medicine you have purchased, when you purchased the medicine, and if there is still medicine remaining on the prescription for purchase.
You can save your own measurements, such as weight, heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar data in MyKanta. These data are currently accessible only to you. In the future, you will also be able to give your consent for your wellbeing data to be accessible to social welfare and health care professionals.