Finnish Base Profiles and Kanta: FHIR is not the main Kanta standard
Finnish Base Profiles 2.0.0 are the HL7 Finland baseline. Kanta is still mostly HL7 v3; FHIR use is limited (PHR, prescriptions, social welfare). PIC/HETU uses urn:oid:1.2.246.21.
Ala Ben Aicha
Direct answer
Finnish Base Profiles 2.0.0 constrain Patient and identifiers. Kanta remains largely HL7 v3; FHIR is limited (PHR, prescriptions, social welfare). PIC/HETU uses urn:oid:1.2.246.21.
FI Base is a baseline, Kanta is a platform
HL7 Finland’s Finnish Base Profiles are the national baseline IG: they tell you how to put a Finnish personal identity code on Patient and how Finnish organisations, encounters and Kanta-related metadata look in FHIR. They are not “the Kanta API”. Kanta (Kela) is the national archive of health and social-welfare information. The FI Base home page is explicit: most Kanta data and APIs are HL7 v3, with FHIR opening in named services.
Simplifier’s Finland jurisdiction summary likewise describes FHIR as used in a limited set of use cases, not as the dominant national standard. Do not bid “Kanta on FHIR” unless the cited Kanta specification is a FHIR IG.
| Layer | Owner / home | Canonical / package | What it is | What it is not |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finnish Base Profiles 2.0.0 (STU 2, 5 Oct 2025) | HL7 Finland; hl7.fi/fhir/finnish-base-profiles | Official URL https://hl7.fi/fhir/finnish-base-profiles/ImplementationGuide/hl7.fhir.fi.base; package hl7.fhir.fi.base#2.0.0; HL7 Finland oid 1.2.246.777.11.2025.4 |
National baseline for Patient, Practitioner, Organization, Encounter and Finnish identifiers / security labels | Not a Kanta conformance target, not a Must-Support-heavy “core” in the US Core sense (this version defines no Must-Support rules) |
| Kanta national services | Kela; kanta.fi | Production archive still HL7 v3 for most documents and APIs | National registry / services for health and social welfare | Not “the Finnish FHIR server” |
| Kanta FHIR slices | Kela + HL7 Finland PH SIG | Kanta PHR (R4 after STU3 sunset); Prescription R4; sosiaalihuolto R4 | Named FHIR APIs: citizen PHR, prescriptions, social welfare | Not the whole of Kanta, not FI Base itself |
| THL / Kela as owners | THL (code systems, national architecture), Kela (Kanta operations) | Referenced from FI Base (Koodistopalvelin, palvelutapahtuma, rekisterinpitäjä) | Standards and service owners | Not a third FHIR package you install instead of FI Base |
Primary sources: FI Base 2.0.0, Kanta PHR specifications.
The identifier: PIC / HETU
Country-specific identifier for Finnish Patient is the official Personal Identifier Code (PIC, Finnish henkilötunnus / HETU), granted by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency. FI Base Patient slice identifier:PIC patterns:
urn:oid:1.2.246.21
use official, type NNFIN. Human-readable form is 11 characters; the FHIR system is the OID URN. Temporary identifiers use other OIDs (organisation-scoped); they are not PIC. Do not publish a real HETU. Keep the system URL and a dummy value in fixtures. FI Base examples such as 010190-999Y are specification examples, not a person.
Turvakielto (non-disclosure of contact details) is a Finnish Patient concern profiled in FI Base. It is not an identifier, but it will break naive address mapping if you ignore it.
What to implement first
- If the buyer needs a Finnish Patient for any FHIR API: FI Base 2.0.0, PIC system as above, package
hl7.fhir.fi.base#2.0.0. - If the buyer is a Kanta archive / document integration: start from the v3 Kanta specifications unless the contract names PHR, Prescription R4 or sosiaalihuolto R4.
- If the buyer is a wellbeing / PHR app: Kanta PHR R4 profiles, not FI Base alone, and not STU3 (parallel STU3/R4 support was scheduled to end).
- For EHDS category 1, FI Base + national identifier still sit under EU Core. EU Core does not replace HETU.
What this is not
This article is not Kanta certification, not a Kela connection agreement, not THL terminology licensing, and not legal advice. Implementing FI Base profiles does not grant Kanta access. I do not operate Kanta test environments. Nothing here is clinical advice.
Related reading
For mapping work against FI Base or a named Kanta FHIR IG, use HL7 FHIR integration or start a project.