Develop an application for Kanta PHR – soon citizens can share their own wellbeing information with doctors by mobile phone

Ministry of Social Affairs and Health

30.11.2017 9.35

Press release 181/2017

In the future, it will be possible for citizens to save their own wellbeing information in the My Kanta Pages Personal Heath Record (Kanta PHR) using various applications. It will be possible to save blood pressure and exercise monitoring data, for example, in the service using a mobile application. In the future, citizens may also, if they wish, share information directly with their doctor. At the Slush startup and tech event, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health will announce a design competition for application developers, aimed at finding new kinds of applications to utilise Kanta PHR. The winners will be awarded a cash prize.

My Kanta Pages Personal Health Record (Kanta PHR) is part of the Kanta Services initiative, which provides national services to citizens, social and healthcare service providers and pharmacies. Kanta Services are developed and maintained by the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela), the National Institute of Health and Welfare (THL) and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health (STM).

In Kanta PHR, health and wellbeing information are stored conveniently and safely in one location. The service encourages citizens to monitor their own wellbeing. In addition, it facilitates, for example, monitoring of long-term illnesses with up-to-date information.

For social and healthcare professionals, Kanta PHR provides a new tool with which they can monitor clients’ wellbeing information. Kanta PHR can be used to save up-to-date monitoring results traditionally brought to consultations on paper, such as blood sugar and respiration rate data, electronically with no need for a client visit.

For application developers, an opportunity to integrate with Kanta PHR

Application developers can now integrate their applications with the Kanta PHR test environment. An application may, for example, enable the saving of information directly from a measuring device. Integrated applications must fulfil, among other things, security requirements. Kanta PHR uses the HL7 FHIR standard, which provides a new, international means of developing social and healthcare data content, also for small application developers.

Integration with Kanta PHR is free for application developers. Applications integrated with Kanta PHR will also receive visibility via the Kanta PHR services. The My Kanta pages are visited 1.3 million times per month. The Kanta brand is respected and well known.

Kanta PHR data is available for various applications. In addition to data saved by citizens, in the future it will be possible to utilise client data saved by social and healthcare professionals, when legislation allows this.

Kela is implementing the Kanta PHR platform, and will maintain and develop it. From the beginning of 2018, application providers can register for approval testing, but Kanta PHR already offers national data content and test environments for application developers. Citizens will be able to utilise Kanta PHR via applications, when the applications have been approved for Kanta PHR.

The first wellbeing applications utilising Kanta PHR will be developed in the municipalities’ joint Self-care and Digital Value Services (ODA) project and in the university hospitals’ joint Virtual Hospital project.

Competition for application developers

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health will launch a design competition for application developers on 30 November. The objective of the competition is to find developers for health and wellbeing applications that will improve citizens’ social and healthcare services and promote wellbeing. The applications must make use of Kanta PHR. Developers can design applications for different purposes: 1) self-care 2) guided self-care 3) device and ecosystem interfaces.

A contract notice relating to the competition has been published in the EU’s TED database and the actual competition invitation has been published on the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health website. The competition will run until 26 January 2018. The winners will be awarded a cash prize.

Public sector, startups and application developers at Slush Side Event

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has invited startup companies, application developers and health and wellbeing service providers to a Slush Side Event. The purpose of the event is, among other things, to promote opportunities for startup companies in the Finnish health and wellbeing sector to succeed in international markets, and to accelerate cooperation between service providers and startups. At the event, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Kela and THL will provide more information about Kanta PHR and answer developers’ questions.

The goal is for the event to inspire the creation of new electronic health and wellbeing services. One objective of the health and social services reform is for electronic services to improve citizens’ health and social services and promote wellbeing.

The event can be viewed as a live webcast on 30 November at 11.30 a.m. at the address: http://videonet.fi/stm/20171130/

On the social media, the event can be discussed via #soteSlush

Inquiries

Further information for the media

My Kanta Pages Personal Health Record

Teemupekka Virtanen, Senior Adviser, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, tel. +358 2951 63370, [email protected]

Pirjo Vuorikallas, Kanta PHR Customer Manager, Kela, tel. +358 50 554 2855, [email protected]

Jari Suhonen, Project Manager, THL, +358 29 524 7416, [email protected]

Design competition

Jari Porrasmaa, Senior Adviser, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, tel. +358 2951 63381, [email protected]

General information about the event

Jukka Lähesmaa, Senior Adviser, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, tel. +358 2951 63139, [email protected]

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