Kanta client test service ensures an effective information system for healthcare
The Kanta client test service ensures that various Kanta Services are working well in the information systems and in the social welfare and healthcare organisations using them.
The Kanta client test service is meant for the suppliers of information systems to be connected to Kanta and for the social welfare and healthcare organisations and pharmacies acting as their client testers. There are several different supplier information systems used in Finland. The purpose of the test service is to ensure that the various functionalities of the Kanta Services operate smoothly in the systems and with their users.
“The testing will show that the information systems have been implemented in accordance with the national specifications and that all information works well together. That way, information is shown in exactly the same format to the user regardless of the system used for reading it,” says Customer Relations Coordinator Laura Natunen.
What does the testing of Kanta Services involve?
First, the client testing is carried out, with the information system suppliers and client test organisations independently testing their solutions in the test environment. The client test service includes test environments of various Kanta Services, e.g. it is possible to test the effectiveness of the systems in the Prescription Centre, the client data archive for social welfare services, the Patient Data Repository, the patient data management service, and the archive of imaging data.
Client testing is followed by the joint testing of systems, which is also performed in the Kanta client test service. “The information system suppliers and client organisations will join Kela's Kanta client test service through their own test environments, and that way testing is carried out between these environments’,” Natunen explains.
To be able to participate in joint testing, the system must have passed the pre-determined tests. Joint testing is also a mandatory stage if the information system is to join the Kanta Services.
“By law, the systems that are to be included in Kanta must be certified. Joint testing is required for the certification of an information system, and after that an information security audit will still be carried out,” explains Testing Specialist Kaisa Penttilä.
Publication schedule determines the testing timetable
After the certification process, information systems joining the Kanta Services will receive a certificate of conformity, which is valid for a specified period. “The information system service provider must contact Kela and the information security audit organisation at least six months before the validity of the certificate expires at the latest, or even earlier if the information system in question will undergo changes in relation to Kanta,” Penttilä points out.
New functionalities and features will also be tested. For example, if a statutory new feature is included in Kanta, Kela will implement it in the Kanta system and the information system suppliers in turn will implement it in the patient data systems they are managing. It is only after that when new functionalities can be introduced in the social welfare and healthcare organisations and pharmacies.
Kanta Services and various functionalities are deployed according to the publication schedule. It always depends on the publication schedule which service and function will be tested at which stage. “In practice, we carry out various testing processes throughout the year," says Natunen.