Mehiläinen encourages wider use of Suomi.fi Services also in the private sector

Suomi.fi e-Authorizations is one of the most used and best-liked services representing the Finnish digital infrastructure. The interface of the e-Authorizations service is also available to the private sector free of charge. The health services provider Mehiläinen has already used it to implement the booking of appointments for some time now. Next, the company will introduce it in its OmaMehiläinen application. 

Suomi.fi e-Authorizations, produced by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency, enables private individuals and organisations to act on behalf of another person or an organisation in many digital services. For example, the rights of a child’s guardian or a company's managing director to use services is verified directly from up-to-date basic registers, which makes the services secure and easy to use. People and organisations can also use Suomi.fi e-Authorizations to grant mandates to act on their behalf. 

Mehiläinen uses the e-Authorizations service in the booking of appointments as each appointment requires identification. Ossi Laukkanen, Director of Digital Health Services, explains that the company is extremely happy with both the solution and the cooperation with the Digital and Population Data Services Agency.

Managing their own personal data
will be more straightforward for Finnish people
when they already know the process from
public-sector services and the process is user-friendly.

“When the user logs into appointment booking, their data and right to use services are linked from the Population Information System directly to us through an interface. Managing their own personal data will be more straightforward for Finnish people when they already know the process from public-sector services and the process is user-friendly. For us, Suomi.fi e-Authorizations makes verifying the up-to-dateness of client information significantly easier than before,” says Laukkanen.

There is room for public digital services to also grow in the private sector

According to Laukkanen, the use of services representing the public digital infrastructure should be further extended so that end users would benefit from them even more. The majority of Suomi.fi Services can also be freely used by the private sector free of charge.  

Laukkanen hopes that the services will also be more equally available to the private sector. In his opinion, Finland has been too worried about commercialising the publicly produced digital infrastructure. There could be even wider interest in using the services in the private sector, but companies often rely on private options because public actors overtake them in the waiting list of those implementing the services. 

The use of services representing
the public digital infrastructure should be
further extended so that end users would
benefit from them even more.

As an example, Laukkanen gives the data in the Population Information System, which Mehiläinen previously bought through an operator. The updating and consequently the reliability of data obtained this way are good, but not yet as good as they could be. The operators also price the verification of the data in such as way what it is not affordable to keep verifying them all the time. In health matters, this may even become a patient safety issue. It is possible for public-sector actors to have an interface directly with the system, which means that the data is updated constantly without a separate payment.

“Here in Finland, this service is provided free of charge to public actors. It doesn’t have to be free for the private sector. It is more important to have up-to-date register data easily available to different actors. The e-Authorizations service is free of charge and we hope that there will be more of similar services.”

ICT service providers in the private sector should take advantage of national services

Ossi Laukkanen declares himself to be a great fan of Suomi.fi Services. According to him, the Digital and Population Data Services Agency sets a good example to the world by making national services available and providing services with extremely good usability. He hopes that ICT service providers in the private sector will also get this message. 

“In my opinion, we should talk more about how great these national systems that we Finns are using are. They certainly bear comparison with the healthcare data infrastructure used, for example, elsewhere in Europe. We have already been using electronic systems for about twenty years, whereas other countries did not begin to digitalise services and data management until the end of the 2010s,” Laukkanen stresses.

According to Laukkanen, the actual implementation and cooperation with the Agency’s team went well. The exceptional situation at the start required some extra investigation of matters related to permits. This had to do mainly with the fact that, while using the registers of the public sector, Mehiläinen is also a public-sector service provider. Working together has gone smoothly.

We should talk more about how great
these national systems that we Finns are using are.

“The team at the Digital and Population Data Services Agency had a solution-centred approach, which worked well with our can-do culture. All in all, everything was done very professionally and so successfully that we are planning to extend the use of the service.” 

Plans are already being made at Mehiläinen to introduce e-Authorizations in the next service, the OmaMehiläinen application.