The corona pandemic unexpectedly resulted in major psychophysical challenges for all people in the shipping industry. Hundreds of thousands of seafarers were unable to return home as planned. Either they were stuck on board or - due to cut travel routes - in accommodation far away from home. Or they had to struggle with the fact that they could not go on board for many months to earn money for themselves and their families.
The e-healthy-ship project supports all those involved in this situation. For example, the project has developed new information and training content to help them deal with the pandemic. An application for additional funding in this area has been successfully submitted.
The Central Institute for Occupational Medicine and Maritime Medicine (ZfAM) was also able to gain new supporters who will provide offline access to its information materials and thus support the project, for example the Robert Koch Institute, the European Resuscitation Council, Seagull Maritime AS and the Medical Center for Quality in Medicine (ÄZQ). For this we thank.
The pandemic led to the shipping company's stipulation that during this phase of the pandemic only absolutely necessary groups of people may go on board and remain on board, and thus scientists cannot be allowed to travel on board for the time being. This decision was very regrettable for all involved, but understandable and correct. The planned personal installation of the e-learning platform for the seafarers and the on-site instruction by the ZfAM staff thus became impossible.
As an alternative to the original plan, a remote solution was therefore designed in cooperation with the developers of the technical structure of the learning platform Synergy Learning and with the IT experts of the shipping companies Döhle and Roth. This solution provides for remote installation, operation and evaluation and should enable unrestricted functionality and data collection in the future. The intervention phase was thus converted to a completely remote-controlled process, which worked in initial tests and is scheduled to start in 2021.
In addition, the new medical care-related modules of the software from the project partner Hanseaticsoft will be imported and tested via the Cloud Ship Manager and Cloud Fleet Manager software solutions already in use - also remote solutions that will facilitate the further implementation of the e-healthy ship project.
We are pleased if you are interested in distributing information about our project through your channels. We will be happy to assist you with the preparation of material or texts.
Afterwards, we would like to wish you: positive developments in the containment of the pandemic, a relaxed Advent season, Merry Christmas and a healthy, happy and lively 2021 for you!
