One of the recognized barriers to improving informatics education for all nurses remains the limited access to information systems and technology that could improve healthcare delivery.  Often times, access is limited to the systems that are currently deployed in a given location.  Nursing schools often rely on the clinical practicum site to provide access and education on EHRs. Nurses in practice are limited to the currently-deployed technology solutions at their organization, and have limited exposure to new technologies that could be applied in innovative ways to their environment to improve healthcare delivery.

The TIGER Virtual Demonstration Center (VDC) Collaborative team was created to develop a dynamic Internet and possibly a physical destination to demonstrate highly effective and efficient, technology-enabled, solutions of exemplary healthcare delivery systems of the next three to ten years.  One of their primary goals was to encourage innovative and disruptive approaches to improving healthcare delivery with the use of technology. A key requirement was to allow access to the Center from anywhere the Internet is available. A secondary requirement was to expand current thinking about what healthcare is, by engaging visitors to the demonstration lab in potential healthcare futures that demonstrate innovative, high-quality, and maximally efficient care scenarios in compelling ways. To create this future vision we built on what is known today, but also conceptualized what could be possible.