How VGR delivers learning to 57,000 professionals across healthcare and beyond

Overview 

Västra Götalandsregionen (VGR) is one of Sweden’s largest public sector organisations, operating across the healthcare sector with approximately 57,000 employees. The organisation delivers healthcare services across the region while also supporting professional development for a large and diverse workforce. 

Region-wide learning and professional development initiatives are coordinated through the VGR Academy, the regional centre responsible for training, leadership development and specialist programmes. This includes training for healthcare professionals, leadership development initiatives and courses for internationally educated healthcare staff entering the Swedish healthcare system. 

To support these activities, VGR developed a digital learning environment built on Totara Learn, known internally as the learning portal. The platform plays a central role in providing structured learning opportunities across the organisation while supporting both regional and local training initiatives.  

The challenge 

Before adopting Totara, VGR relied on several separate systems to deliver training across the organisation, alongside other tools used for different types of learning content and documentation. This fragmented environment made it difficult to manage learning activities consistently and limited visibility of training opportunities across the organisation.  

VGR also operates within a highly complex organisational structure. Healthcare knowledge and expertise are distributed across multiple divisions, many of which develop their own specialised training. These programmes range from short digital learning modules to year-long specialist education and certification training related to clinical equipment and healthcare practice.  

The organisation therefore required a learning platform that could support decentralised content creation while still enabling regional coordination. It also needed to support VGR’s broader digitalisation goals by helping staff build skills in digital learning design and content production.  

The solution 

VGR implemented Totara Learn to consolidate its training environment into a single platform. The system was selected through a public procurement process and chosen for its ability to be configured to support the organisation’s complex structure and varied training requirements.  

Today, the learning portal supports learning across the organisation through a combination of regional coordination and local expertise. 

Distributed content development 

Training content is created by specialists throughout the organisation, supported by a network of administrators and producers. VGR currently has approximately 600 producers and 300 administrators contributing to learning content across the platform.  

To maintain quality and consistency, anyone responsible for creating courses must complete mandatory training before receiving access to authoring tools within the system. Administrators also complete annual certification to maintain their skills.  

Regional coordination and support 

The regional learning team provides guidance and support for course development while each division appoints local super users who act as the first line of support. This structure enables questions and issues to be resolved locally while maintaining alignment with regional standards.  

Additional support is provided through documentation within the platform and regular open support sessions where administrators and producers can join weekly meetings to ask questions and discuss specific features or themes related to course development.  

Interactive learning design 

The platform also enables the creation of interactive digital learning content using H5P activities within Totara. These tools allow producers to build and edit content directly in the LMS without external authoring tools and support collaboration between course creators.  

To guide learning design, VGR developed four pedagogical principles which emphasise learning that is activating, inclusive, sustainable and motivating. These principles are embedded in training resources within the platform and inform how digital learning content is developed across the organisation.  

The results 

Since introducing Totara Learn, VGR has consolidated multiple learning systems into a single digital environment. This centralisation has simplified access to training and improved the overall learning experience for employees. Staff increasingly use the learning portal as their primary destination when searching for training opportunities or competence-related information.  

The platform now supports a large catalogue of learning activities across the organisation, with approximately 4,200 published courses available to employees. Over the past year, the system recorded 59,500 active users, demonstrating widespread adoption across the workforce.  

The ability to share learning resources across divisions has also increased the reach of locally developed training. For example, a hygiene training course originally developed by one hospital division is now used across the entire region. In 2025 alone, the course recorded 19,169 completions, illustrating how regional collaboration enables specialised knowledge to be distributed more widely across the healthcare workforce. 

By connecting local expertise with a shared digital learning platform, VGR has created a learning environment that supports both regional coordination and local innovation while strengthening access to training across the organisation.