Estonian Medical Certificate

Every person needs to have a valid medical certificate for the duration of their driving license. When a medical certificate expires, a new medical certificate must be submitted to the Road Administration. Once issued, the certificate is automatically transmitted to the motor registry.

@Photo from Pixabay.

Summary 

Every person needs to have valid medical certificate for the duration of their driving license. Generally the medical certificate issued by the family doctor is valid up to maximum 10 years. When a medical certificate expires or the next medical falls due, a new medical certificate must be submitted to the Road Administration. The validity of a medical certificate can be checked via the e-services to the Road Administration.

Since 1 April 2015 doctors have only been issuing e-medical certificates (only in special cases on paper – for instance in the event of a system malfunction at the doctor’s surgery, whereby the doctor must digitalize it later). In order to obtain an medical certificate, you must fill in a medical declaration online at the National Health Information system regarding your health and then make an appointment with a doctor. Once issued, an e-medical certificate is automatically transmitted to the motor registry. There is no need to come in personally to the Road Administration to submit your medical certificate.

OOP aspect

The e-medical certificate is automatically transmitted to the motor registry. There is no need to come in personally to the Road Administration to submit your medical certificate.

Enabling assets or components 

Relevant Enablers
Estonian data exchange layer for information systems (X-Road)
Estonian Public Key Infrastructure
Estonian Catalogue of Public Sector Information (RIHA)
Estonian three-level IT baseline security system ISKE

Legal interoperability
Traffic Act, https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/520102014003/consolide

(§ 101.Medical examination of driver of power-driven vehicle and applicant for right todrive)
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National Health Information System Regulation, https://www.riigiteataja.ee/akt/106122016011
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Requirements for Health Certificate, https://www.riigiteataja.ee/akt/121062011008
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Personal Data Protection Act, https://www.riigiteataja.ee/akt/12805972?leiaKehtiv
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Public Information Act, https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/518012016001/consolide
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Population Register Act, https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/523032017001/consolide
Socio-cultural influence factors
Legal and organizational interoperability: legislation approved by stakeholders

All registers must linked by use commonly accepted keys:
• personal code for citizens,
• code of institution,
• standardised address presentation.

Secure data exchange layer X-Road (https://www.ria.ee/en/x-road.html) is used for gathering data from different registers. X-Road is a technological and organizational environment enabling a secure Internet-based data exchange between information systems. All registers and Statistics Estonia must be a member of X-Road Information regarding the X-Road members and the services they provide is available via the Administration System for the State Information System (RIHA).

RIHA (https://www.ria.ee/en/administration-system-of-the-state-informationsystem.html) serves as a catalogue for the state’s information system. At the same time RIHA is a procedural and administrative environment via which the comprehensive and balanced development of the state’s information system has ensured. RIHA guarantees the transparency of the administration of the state’s information system and helps to plan the state’s information management.

PKI or the public key infrastructure (https://www.ria.ee/en/public-keyinfrastructure.html) enables secure digital authentication and signing. The infrastructure also allows forwarding data by using an encrypting key pair: a publicencryption key and a private decryption key. In Estonia, this technology is used in relation with electronic identity (ID card, mobile ID, digital ID). All members of XRoad are using Digital seal certificates for signing messages. Citizens and officials are using electronic identity tokens.

All participants must be implemented three-level IT baseline security system ISKE (https://www.ria.ee/en/iske-en.html). The goal of implementing ISKE is to ensure a security level sufficient for the data processed in IT systems. The necessary security level achieved by implementing the standard organisational, infrastructural/physical and technical security measures.

Data guidelines of Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (http://www.aki.ee/et/juhised) must followed.

Data handling / data exchange

Type of data sharing

Actual data

Data handler

Government

Architecture

Lessons learned 

Benefits

- Already collected data can be used to develop various new services
- Decrease the number of GP visits
- Makes the certificates reproduced form for long period (for 10 years for drivers licences)
- Certificates are available for the Road Administration as well as Police

Enablers

• Legal, organizational, technical, social-cultural, fiscal and professional interoperability between different sectors (Health care and Road Administration)
• Security and technical
• Clear Responsibilities, rules and technical solutions are made for optimizing the working flow

Barriers

Economical motivation and feasibility
Cooperation between different authorities
Doctors dashboards needs the general modernization for adding new services to their desks

Source: https://scoop4c.eu/cases/estonian-medical-certificate

Disclaimer: Please note that this article is a result of the SCOOP4C Pilot Project, not an application of a CEF Building Block.

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