Design and evolution of the Seafarer’s Health Passport for supporting (tele)-medical assistance to seafarers

Abstract

Background: Seafarers undergo periodic medical examination for their employment. This information in most cases is not effectively used when requesting for medical assistance during service on board ships. The medical history of an individual is important for provision of medical care and can be critical to the outcome. There is growing adoption of digital applications and electronic health records that are adding great value to the care provided. The Seafarer's Health Passport (SHP) is an application specifically designed for improving the quality of medical assistance provided to seafarers both through telemedicine or classic medical checkups in ports/hospitals worldwide. The SHP provides a secure and unique way to archive and retrieve the seafarer's medical history in an electronic support. Materials and methods: The SHP that we have developed is a product with specific hardware and software specifications. The basic features of this software are Linux operating system Debian/Ubuntu, Apache Web server 2.x, Server database MySQL/Maria DB PHP programming language 5.6.xx, and secure connection in https. Results: The SHP represents a helpful hint to physicians providing medical advices to seafarers enabling them to make more decisions that are informed and curtailing possible complications due to misdiagnosis. Conclusions: Provision of high quality medical assistance requires knowledge of patient's medical history. The availability of an easy access and friendly use system of own medical history is useful for a population of travellers, such as seafarers to guarantee a reasonable level of medical care at any time.

COVID-19 and seafarers’ rights to shore leave, repatriation and medical assistance: a pilot study

“…On the other hand, a case study of the United States revealed that neoliberal policies taken together with technology could create conditions that may for example, increase health inequity among seafarers [36]. Medical assistance to seafarers has been the focus of several case studies [37][38][39][40], but it draws little attention and receives limited public resources for provision of services [32]. Moreover, identifying and addressing special health and welfare needs of women seafarers is a work in progress [41].…”

Requirements, Challenges, and Key Components to Improve Onboard Medical Care Using Maritime Telemedicine: Narrative Review

“…Therefore, to ensure the confidentiality and security of patients' information, it is necessary to record and maintain all conversations and information transfers between the physician residing in medicine (or the patient receiving the service) and the specialist physician [ 58 ]. In some studies, to authenticate patient records, tokens were used [ 33 ].…”

“…As the results showed, part of the studies in maritime telemedicine was devoted to the general health assessment of employees and periodic follow-up. Therefore, the development of an electronic health record platform for seafarers, in addition to making it easier for them to provide remote medical services, is also considered one of the prerequisites in the design of this type of service [ 33 ].…”

Maritime Telemedicine: Design and Development of an Advanced Healthcare System Called Marine Doctor

“…There is some existing software from our center that was developed to maintain a ship’s pharmacy [ 25 ], manage the medicine chest [ 6 ], maintain seafarers’ health passports and patient health records [ 26 ], and record the seafarer’s physical activity through android-based smartphone application [ 27 ]. However, these applications are limited to their functionality and are not for the transfer of telemedical requests to TMAS doctors.…”