A global leader in maritime healthcare and wellbeing solutions, VIKAND, says the number of seafarers who are ‘opening up’ and talking about their mental health will increase, due to its first-of-a-kind, wellness data-collection tool.

Presenting at the recent International Maritime Human Factors Symposium, Ronald Spithout, Managing Director OneHealth by VIKAND, highlighted the importance of ‘Crew Asset Management’ and real time data gathering technology to support seafarers’ welfare.

Developed by Danish tech company Scoutbase, the solution encourages and enables seafarers to ‘open up’ and express themselves anonymously. The solution tracks important data through ‘welfare pulse sampling’ or ‘nudging,’ where questions are generated to gauge how someone is feeling.

Depending on their response, further questions are generated, creating a profile. Answers that are concerning can result in a voluntary call with a mental health professional. This friendly way of questioning has resulted in engagement levels of over 80%, while also allowing for earlier interventions of help.

Ronald Spithout said: “The shift to digitalisation in maritime has massively impacted on how we can support our seafarers and protect a ships greatest asset, which is its people. By capturing and monitoring wellness and health information in real time, we can provide seafarers with a wide range of medical advice and support unlike never before. This is a huge step forward.”

Yassin Askar, the co-founder of Scoutbase, said: “Using technology which automatically collects anonymous feedback from seafarers and shore-based personnel on safety and critical issues, will provide ship operators with insights from across their fleets which will help raise operational standards and safety. Looking after seafarers must be our number one priority.”

Several presentations took place at the IMO, which all focused on the issues of safety, wellbeing for seafarers. Speakers and experts from a range of maritime industry bodies, and organisations and educational establishments took part.