Embrace: Enhancing Emotional Support through Digital Storytelling (2025-2026)
This project team investigated how digital storytelling and legacy-creation technologies can support the emotional well-being and social connectedness of patients facing serious illness. Recognizing that patients and families often need mental, emotional and spiritual support in addition to medical care, the team focused on developing and evaluating Embrace, a digital platform designed to help patients, caregivers and loved ones create and share multimedia stories, memories and personal messages. Through an interdisciplinary collaboration spanning technology, health care and social science research, the team sought to determine whether user-centered digital intervention could reduce loneliness, strengthen relationships and improve resilience during serious illness.
Over the past year, students played a central role in refining the Embrace platform and advancing the research agenda surrounding digital legacy creation. Team members conducted extensive platform testing, identified opportunities to improve usability and user experience, and evaluated competing platforms to inform future development. Students also engaged with guest speakers, including Duke faculty, palliative care physicians and psychiatrists, to deepen their understanding of the intersection of health care, technology and emotional support. These experiences informed the development of research questions and a comprehensive scoping review examining existing evidence related to legacy creation and emotional well-being.
The team’s work established a stronger evidence base for the Embrace platform while helping to identify best practices for supporting patients and families through technology-enabled storytelling and connection. By combining platform development with rigorous research, the team laid the foundation for future evaluation and implementation of Embrace in health care settings and contributed new insights into how digital tools can enhance quality of life during serious illness.
Timing
Summer 2025 – Spring 2026
Team Outputs
Embrace (website)
Factors Influencing Effectiveness of Digital Interventions in Palliative Care: A Scoping Review (Poster presentation at the Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Showcase, April 15, 2026)
Manuscript scoping review draft
Flyers for distribution at clinic sites
Directory guide on how to use the Embrace platform
See related team, Embrace: Evidence-Based Social Support Activation (2026-2027).