Finland's Kainuu-region health- and social care data archiving project completed in record time

Press Release 16 November, 2023

Finland's Kainuu-region health- and social care data archiving project completed in record time 

Digital Workforce and its partner Atostek have delivered Kainuu -welfare region a legacy data-archiving project that consisted of extracting old patient- and client data from Kainuu's Pegasos patient data system using Robotic Process Automation (RPA), converting it and transferring it to Kela's (The Social Insurance Institution of Finland) Kanta -archive. In addition to the main project, some expressly agreed data was extracted and saved in the customer's own archiving system. The entire project was completed in just under eight months. 

Kela has been assigned to store old health- and social care data in Finland within its Kanta -archive, enabling care providers, such as the Kainuu -region, to run down their old archiving systems. The Kainuu -project is the second RPA-based archiving project completed regarding the electronic archiving of legacy data stored in the welfare regions.

The archived data had accumulated from passive databases between 1992 and 2012 into Kainuu's Pegasos -systems. The project spanned nine transferable databases, more than 200,000 personal identifiers, and about 800,000 documents. The archived data included medical reports, certificates and forms, pediatric clinic records, pregnancy monitoring records, laboratory tests, inpatient records, and home care and service plans. 

"The project aimed to transfer data from Kainuu's old Pegasos -databases to Kela's Kanta -archive or Kainuu's own archive to end the use of the old system and run it down. We decided to use robotics in the project to achieve cost-effective and high-quality results. The archiving project went smoothly, and the result exceeded our expectations both in terms of schedule and the quality of the final output", says Sirkku Malinen, System Manager and the primary user of Kainuu's Pegasos system. 

The legacy data archiving project utilized a cloud service Robocorp -platform – based on Robot Framework's open-source code - and Atostek's Kanta-certified ERA application, which converted and transferred the data into Kanta -archive in CDAR2 -format in compliance with Kela's requirements. The solution delivered by Digital Workforce is independent of the Pegasos -system and can be applied to any other source system.

"The Kainuu legacy data archiving project was the second of its kind in Finland to get off the ground. We gained valuable experience from the first project and were able to work very efficiently. The work started in March 2023 and moved to production at the end of June. The last documents were transferred into the Kanta -archive on 11 October 2023, well ahead of the promised deadline of the end of the year, and the eight months also included a summer holiday period. With our solution, welfare regions can transfer all legacy patient- and customer data in a single project in compliance with the law. Archiving the legacy data is a resource-, expertise- and experience-intensive project that we can handle on behalf of our customers," says Juha Järvi, Global Head of Healthcare, Digital Workforce.

Archiving customer and patient data to Kela's Kanta -service using RPA typically takes 9-12 months. It can be divided into four main phases: preparation, extraction, conversion, and transfer to the database.

In Finland, dozens of legacy data archiving projects are ongoing and underway, as the Customer Information Act obliges all public social- and health care service providers to join the Kanta -archives by 1 September 2024. It is estimated that between 800 and 1000 social- and healthcare systems in Finland contain archivable data.

For further information, please contact:

Juha Järvi, Global Head of Healthcare, Digital Workforce Services Plc

juha.jarvi@digitalworkforce.com

About Digital Workforce Services Plc

Digital Workforce Services Plc is a leading business process automation services and technology solution provider globally. Digital Workforce Outsmart services and technology solution suites allow organisations to save costs, accelerate digitalisation, increase revenue, improve customer experience, and gain a competitive advantage. Globally, over 250 large customers use Digital Workforce’s services and technologies to transform their businesses with automation. Founded in 2015, Digital Workforce currently employs over 200 business automation specialists in the US, the UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Digital Workforce is publicly listed in Nasdaq First North Growth Market Finland.