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

Abstract

Background: The availability of better healthcare services is critical for onboard seafarers. The development of expert systems can help ships with limited medical facilities, which allow the shipside doctors to properly refer symptoms to remote doctors. This allows clinicians to make a correct diagnosis from there, which leads to proper treatment. A software named Marine Doctor (M Doc) has been developed by incorporating computing technologies to address this objective. Methods: With the help of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) this application can support the provision of appropriate medical assistance to seafarers. The system was developed with Python Tkinter (frontend) and PHP (backend) languages. MySQL was used as a server database. Results: Seafarers can use M Doc to benefit from medical advice that can reduce complications due to misdiagnosis and help doctors to make better-informed decisions. By automatically collecting appropriate sequences of symptoms, doctors will be able to generate proper information for referral of patient symptoms and subsequent advice based on the data. Conclusions: Technology that supports experts on board ships in better interacting with Telemedical Maritime Assistance Services (TMAS) could define the future of medical assistance at sea.

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

“…The final articles according to the publication year and country are shown in Figure 2. As we can see, out of 18 reviewed articles, six articles were published in 2020 by different countries [4,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24], two studies in 2021 [14,16,25,26], and three studies in 2022 [27][28][29][30]. The remained articles were published from 2004 to 2019 [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39].…”

Exploring the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) in maritime medicine: A narrative literature review (Preprint)

“…An important aspect of wearable technology and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) devices in maritime medicine is to have the ability to enhance telemedicine. Telemedicine involves utilizing ICT devices like marine doctor can provide healthcare services over a distance between land-based healthcare providers and remote seafarers' onboard ships [21]. The use of ICT devices can improve the accuracy and efficiency of medical consultations by providing realtime monitoring of key physiological parameters such as heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation levels [22].…”

The Use of Radio and Telemedicine by TMAS Centers in Provision of Medical Care to Seafarers: A Systematic Review

“…The most popular is the store and forward method, which involves taking images or videos of Different contact possibilities are currently available for medical assistance at sea. The most popular is the store and forward method, which involves taking images or videos of a patient and transmitting them to a specialist for consultation [19,20,25]. Live telemedicine involves real-time audio-visual interaction between the provider and patient, similar to a video call.…”

“…The establishment of AI-based telemedicine systems for maritime vessels has numerous benefits. An AI-based marine doctor system enables prompt and efficient medical assistance to seafarers and crew members who encounter health complications [25]. Physicians can make informed decisions based on AI algorithms that analyze patient histories, laboratory results, and imaging studies [36].…”