Regional Use of Open Notes via Nationwide Web-Based MyKanta Patient Portal in 2017–2024 in Finland

When a healthcare professional shares their documentation with a patient, it becomes an 'open note'. In Europe and elsewhere, open notes are already available nationwide in a few countries. Country comparisons have been assessed but only a few studies have focused regional use of open notes. The study objective was to measure use of nationally accessible open notes via nationwide MyKanta patient portal by region before, during and after the COVID-19 epidemic in Finland in 2017-2024. Our nationwide register study material consisted of MyKanta monthly logins from May 2010 to June 2024 and annual municipality level logins in 2017-2024. A third (34%) of inhabitants in Finland in 2017 had at least once logged into the web-based MyKanta and its open notes, the proportions increased to over two thirds (71%) in 2021 during the COVID-19 epidemic and decreased to over half (56%) in 2023. We observed regional variation in proportions. Also, the 6-month time series in 2017-2024 showed increasing trends in use of MyKanta and its open notes in 2020-2022.