Semblie: A Web-Based Platform for Building, Testing, and Deploying Digital Health Interventions

Background:

Digital health interventions (DHIs) are communications--delivered via web and mobile platforms--that aim to educate, engage, and motivate health behavior change among patients and other interested groups. They include content such as interactive health education tools and decision aids. However, development, delivery, and evaluation of DHIs can be challenging for multidisciplinary teams that want to co-create solutions with intended users. Traditionally, DHIs require teams to hire IT staff to design and modify websites, iterative changes can be difficult and time-consuming, and development environments do not foster collaboration.

Program background:

Researchers at RTI International and the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute (NC TraCS) developed the web-based Semblie platform (https://semblie.rti.org) to make it more feasible for health communicators to plan, implement, and evaluate DHIs. Semblie’s content management system allows users—especially those without IT expertise—to collaboratively create and manage interactive content with different layouts, text, multimedia, and survey questions. Semblie includes tools for visual editing, previewing how content will look on any device, tailoring content to participant characteristics, getting colleagues’ feedback, distributing content, integrating data with third-party platforms, and downloading response and usage data.

Evaluation Methods and Results:

We piloted Semblie with the NC TraCS community from 2019 to 2023. First, we surveyed health sciences researchers, clinicians, and other interested parties about their needs and preferences for producing DHIs. Respondents desired a platform that could export data, work on a range of browsers and devices, integrate with other systems, and deliver tailored content. Then, we designed Semblie with these needs in mind. After developing an initial version, we conducted outreach to the NC TraCS community to recruit users interested in piloting the platform. We collaborated with several teams who created DHIs in Semblie on topics including cancer, COVID, urologic conditions, and HIV/AIDS. We gathered user feedback via ongoing consultations. Users appreciated Semblie for giving a high level of control over content and editing frequency, its data collection forms and database, and ease of use when co-creating content with intended users. They suggested improvements to features for formatting, tailoring, and integrating DHIs with 3^rd party platforms.

Conclusions:

We identified the need for a platform that health communicators, particularly those without technical web design expertise, can use to create DHIs. Through our pilot phase, we demonstrated the feasibility, usability, and acceptability of Semblie to create DHIs on any topic.

Implications for research and/or practice:

Use cases for Semblie include research, implementation, and public health practice. Researchers can use Semblie to prototype and test DHIs, create educational materials and surveys, and evaluate intervention effectiveness. Practitioners can use Semblie to disseminate educational material to patients and community members, adapt interventions into web formats to support telemedicine, and tailor content to help patients set personalized health goals. Public health professionals can use Semblie to deploy DHIs at a community/population level and to facilitate information sharing. Semblie better positions health communicators to use digital technology to respond to audience needs and preferences in the right way at the right time.