For healthcare patients 

Wellbeing services county of North Savo 
P.O. Box 1711 
70211 KUOPIO 
kirjaamo@pshyvinvointialue.fi 

The officeholder in charge is Mr Antti Hedman, Chief Medical Officer. 

The email address of the controller’s data protection officer is tietosuoja@pshyvinvointialue.fi  (general advice only). In matters related to medical care, please contact the care unit in question. 

We will process your data in the healthcare patient register of the North Savo wellbeing services county. The register covers documents and records drawn up at your place of treatment or received there for the purpose of producing and implementing your treatment and they contain data on your health status or other personal data on you. 

Your data will be processed for the purposes of organising, planning, implementing and monitoring your treatment. When you visit healthcare services, data necessary for these purposes will be entered in your patient records. 

Your data may also be processed for other lawful purposes, such as scientific research, knowledge management, or statistics. 

Processing your personal data is necessary in order to comply with the statutory obligation of the data controller. On the basis of more specific legal provisions, data processing may also be justified because it is necessary 

• for establishing medical diagnoses or for your treatment and care by the healthcare and social welfare services; 
• for the management of healthcare and social welfare services and systems; 
• in the name of public interest that relates to public health (e.g. protection against serious cross-border threats to health, or ensuring high quality and safety standards in health care and for medicinal products or medical devices); or 
• for archiving, for scientific and historical research or for compiling statistics, in the name of public interest. 

Personal data will be obtained from you personally or from your legal representative and in accordance with the section entitled “Regular sources of personal data”. 

The following categories of personal data are processed in the context of the processing of personal data: 

• General personal data: your name, your contact details, your personal identity code, contact details of your next of kin, your native language or language of communication, and, where applicable, contact details of a minor’s custodian or legal representative 
• Specific personal data: information about your health, including records related to your health, test results, statements and certificates. 
• Technical personal data: - 
• Other personal data, to be specified: - 

To the extent that personal data have not been collected from you personally, the regular sources of personal data are: 

• entries and records generated by your treatment and the tests performed on you 
• the national patient data archives (Kanta), maintained by the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela), where data concerning you can be obtained if you have received the Kanta notification, have given your consent to data sharing through Kanta and have not prohibited disclosure of your data through Kanta. 
• information related to a referral from another wellbeing services county or from private healthcare services 
• for general personal data, the Population Information System of the Digital and Population Data Services Agency 

The data contained in your patient documents may be transferred to service providers of the North Savo wellbeing services county, for example, when services are produced by means service vouchers. 

Your patient data will be archived in the national patient data archives (Kanta), maintained by the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela) so that service providers associated with Kanta will have access to your data if you have received the Kanta notification, have given your consent to data sharing through Kanta and have not prohibited disclosure of your data through Kanta. 

Data on you contained in your patient documents may only be disclosed with your consent or with the consent of your legal representative or on the basis of a legal provision justifying such disclosure. You cannot prohibit disclosures of patient data that are based on legislation. 

Transfer and disclosure of data outside the EU or the EEA 

On some occasions, your personal data may be transferred to third countries outside the EU or the EEA in the context of providing a service for you. In such cases, the transfer of personal data is justified by a decision by the European Commission on an adequate level of data protection or by the standard contractual clauses adopted by the European Commission. We shall also protect your data on a case-by-case basis, for example, by encrypting or pseudonymising them. 

We shall protect your personal data by implementing technical and organisational safeguards, such as: 

• protecting patient data systems by means of a username and password. Access rights are only granted to the employees of the data controller who are entitled to use such data in their work tasks; 
• placing data systems in a secure environment protected with firewalls and maintained by applying appropriate data security practices, such as anti-malware programs and regular security updates; 
• storing any paper materials in appropriately controlled spaces, access to which is restricted by access rights; 
• storing archived materials in appropriately controlled spaces, access to which is restricted by access rights; 
• training employees and giving written instructions to them; 
• by contractual means. 

Your data will be stored in accordance with the requirements laid down in the legislation on patient documents (in Finnish only) and other applicable legislation. 

Read more about your data protection rights on the Your data protection rights web page. If you wish to exercise your right, please contact the registry of the North Savo wellbeing services county, P.O. Box 1711, 70211 KUOPIO, or kirjaamo@pshyvinvointialue.fi.

You can also contact the Data Protection Officer to inquire about the use of your rights, tietosuoja@pshyvinvointialue.fi.