Kompetansebroen

What Kompetansebroen is

Kompetansebroen calls itself a "Portal for kunnskapsdeling i helsetjenesten", a portal for knowledge sharing in the health service. Its contact address is Akershus universitetssykehus HF, Sykehusveien 25, in Nordbyhagen. The site gathers digital courses, training films, a podcast, expert articles and an events calendar for people who work in hospitals and municipal health and care services, so it serves two readers at once: the individual nurse, doctor or care worker who wants to learn something specific, and the service that needs a ready library of training for its staff. Everything is in Norwegian.

Users can pick an area, Ahus, Innlandet, Oslo, Østfold or Vestfold, to get local content and information from their health community. The site adds: "Om ditt helsefellesskap ikke er med i Kompetansebroen er du allikevel velkommen til å benytte ressursene som er delt på nettsiden" (if your health community is not part of Kompetansebroen, you are still welcome to use the resources shared on the site). Users can log in, sign up for a newsletter and submit their own events and news items.

The digital course library

The e-learning section lists each course with its target group and the time it takes, and can be filtered by category: ambulant services and patient pathways, children and young people, nutrition, ethics, geriatrics, rehabilitation, health promotion, health technology, chronic illness, women's health, medicines, diversity and migration health, observation skills, palliative care, relatives, mental health and substance use, wounds, infection control, grief support and intellectual disability, among others. Most courses are short and practical, from five minutes to a few hours, with a few long ones.

Medicines are a large strand. The basic course in medication handling, for staff who hand out medicines, takes 6 to 7 hours; there are courses on dose calculation (30 to 60 minutes), pharmacological principles for nurses (30 minutes), medication for children and young people aged 0 to 18, antibiotics in the health service, and a refresher course on medicines for nurses and vernepleiere (social educators). Infection control covers hand hygiene (10 minutes), basic infection control routines (20 to 25 minutes), MRSA, isolation, aseptic technique and technical disinfection (15 to 20 minutes each), norovirus and preoperative routines.

Older people and dementia get serious depth. Hva er demens? (What is dementia?) takes 3 hours. Basic dementia assessment for doctors comes as a 6-hour course and an extended 15-hour version. Depression in older people is an 8-hour course for doctors, clinical nurse specialists and specialist nurses, and there are courses on dementia, depression and loneliness (2 hours), palliative care and dementia (4 hours), diabetes in older people (4 hours), ageing, alcohol and medicines, and the Clinical Frailty Scale.

Mental health and substance use courses include TSB-skolen for staff new to specialized substance use treatment, motivational interviewing (30 minutes), suicide prevention (70 minutes), emergency treatment and follow-up after an overdose (45 minutes) and medication-assisted rehabilitation (LAR). For services for people with intellectual disabilities there is Dette må jeg kunne (this I must know), a 7-hour course for new and temporary staff without relevant training, plus courses on grief support, palliative care, values and person-centered care, and food and enjoyment. A separate 7-hour introduction to health and care work is aimed at new and temporary staff without a health qualification.

Other courses cover emergency preparedness (chemical, biological and nuclear incidents and receiving patients after a CBRNE event), CPR, digital security for students and health staff (2 hours per module), basic health law, violence and threats at work, the Global Trigger Tool for measuring patient harm, the EDSS scale for multiple sclerosis (20 minutes), the NIHSS stroke scoring tool (1 hour), fall prevention training (60 minutes), children as relatives, migration health and cultural understanding (6 hours), health care for undocumented migrants, and equipment training for CPAP, high-flow oxygen, infusion pumps and home ventilators. Communication and professional practice get their own courses too: Ungdomspasienten for staff who treat patients aged 12 to 25 (30 minutes), health literacy for everyone with patient contact, communicating with patients with cognitive impairment (25 minutes), children's rights, systematic ethics reflection, supervising students in clinical placement, and StepUp, on making better decisions about health innovation and service development. One basic medication course is marked for partner organizations only.

Films, podcast and articles

The film library holds training videos such as a webinar on the medication handling course (31:05), what patients can do on Helsenorge (6:23), when gloves are needed in health care (4:21), and training films for an ambulant nursing team.

The podcast, Helhjerta, is in its sixteenth season. Recent episodes feature psychiatrist and senior consultant Miriam Zangani Jaer on depression, hope and treatment (55:22), Ruth Aga and Mikkel Pretorius on what carries us through life (1:04:16), and Espen Langseth on self-esteem, vulnerability and mental strength (59:59), with an earlier episode in which Torgeir Bruun Wyller discusses what happens as we age and why illness in older people is hard to understand. Episodes are on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Expert articles cover the patient's medication list (PLL), confidentiality for health personnel and its many exceptions, the START and STOPP criteria for choosing medication for older patients, and a relatives program with learning tools for professionals who meet patients' families in their work.

Events and other sections

The events calendar mixes in-person days and webinars, each with a registration deadline: a theme day on tuberculosis at Akershus universitetssykehus, a webinar on training, sport and eating disorders, the 2026 professional and service development conference in Akershus at Thon Hotel Arena, and an information meeting at Gaustad hospital on treatment to prevent sexual offenses. Separate sections cover doctors (Legesiden), health communities and collaboration between services, education, and news for practice consultants.

Help comes through a contact form that asks for a name, an e-mail address and a description, and warns users not to include sensitive personal data such as health information or a national identity number. The site also publishes an accessibility statement and a privacy and cookie page.

Who it suits

Kompetansebroen suits health and care staff in hospitals and municipal services who want short, targeted training, and the managers who need a ready-made induction for new and temporary staff. Doctors in specialist training have their own material, and the podcast and films work for learning on the move. Its focus is practical clinical and care work, organized around the participating health communities, so it serves Norwegian-speaking health workers best. The pages show no prices or course fees.