Five Critical Ways Connectivity Improves Safety in the Maritime Industry
Managed bandwidth applications and services make life and work aboard a vessel safer while simultaneously improving overall crew welfare.
Managed bandwidth communication systems at sea are helping to improve safety standards. From observing areas of high risk and activity, providing enhanced medical care and access to mental wellness counseling, connecting with remote technical support, and keeping crews connected to friends and family, life aboard vessels is becoming safer.
Following are five critical ways to make the maritime industry safer.
Situational Awareness
Safety is every crew member’s responsibility. Being aware of one’s surroundings and activities onboard a vessel is critical to safe operations aboard the ship. Integrating a managed CCTV system on board that observes hazardous and high-activity areas greatly enhances vessel safety initiatives and increases awareness.
Suppose an emergent situation such as an engine room fire or other vessel event impacts operations. In that case, this managed system will allow onshore vessel managers and engineers to remote in, retrieve and review recorded video and provide critical information unknown to the crew at that time as to activities that led up to the incident, thus assisting with the quick resolution of the incident. The managed system consumes a predetermined amount of bandwidth, thus allowing other communications services to continue to work simultaneously in support of vessel operations.
The passage of the Safer Seas Act extends situational awareness to stateroom entrances and passageways to protect all crew on board from Sexual Assault, Sexual Harassment (read more details about this in our recent article Safer Seas Act Compliance and Solutions).
Companies benefit twofold when they invest in managed onboard and remote monitoring systems. First, it adds a layer of deterrence and detection for the crew from sexual harassment, assault, and bullying. Second, it provides the captain and crew with enhanced situational awareness of activities around the ship. This allows everyone to participate in safer vessel operations by identifying and taking corrective action on potentially unsafe activities, and preventing an incident from occurring.
Virtual Acute Care Medical Clinics at Sea
With telemedicine kits, vessels can remotely connect with physicians from anywhere, allowing any number of ailments to be attended to immediately, including cardiac issues, slips and falls and general illnesses. DigiGone's Standard telemedicine kits have HIPAA-compliant encrypted video and audio transmission. Medical tools on these telemedicine kits include built-in webcams, blood pressure cuffs, glucose meters, electrocardiograms, pulse oximeters, and more. More importantly, these kits are designed to easily integrate with existing networks and systems, providing a critical bandwidth-managed asset that can operate on your communication medium simultaneously with other communication services. In addition, these telemedicine kits can be used as ‘‘walk-in clinics at sea,’ allowing you to treat acute ailments before they develop into serious illnesses. A healthy crew is a safer crew.
Connect With Mental Health Providers
For the maritime industry to thrive, companies must take direct actions to ensure all crew members get the mental healthcare they need at sea. While the maritime industry is isolating, managed telemedicine and communication systems allow mariners to connect with mental health professionals, as needed, from anywhere. Using personal cell phones or telemedicine kits, the crew can set up and virtually attend appointments with a counselor from anywhere, including the privacy of their stateroom. Mental wellness is critical for safe vessel operations.
Communicate with Onshore Support
Finally, with managed bandwidth systems, crew and captains can stay connected with technical support teams, port authorities, support centers, and shipping companies while at sea. Fast and efficient communications via managed bandwidth connectivity allow crews to get necessary operational updates, counseling for any issues that arise at sea, technical assistance, and emergency response when needed, all at the same time.
Crews Can Connect with Friends and Family, Enhancing Crew Welfare
The pandemic highlighted the challenges mariners face at sea, including, but not limited to, depression brought on by the inherent isolation of the job. Thankfully, many companies are expanding crew welfare initiatives. With managed bandwidth applications and services, like DigiGone’s CrewChat, crew members can connect with friends and family via voice and video using their cell phones from anywhere. These calls require a minimal portion of a vessel’s bandwidth, meaning other necessary systems can continue running while crew members keep in touch with family. Happy crew, happy boat, safer voyage.
With the introduction of increased bandwidth availability, vessel management companies have the opportunity to improve their vessel productivity. But, they need to develop a bandwidth management plan and select bandwidth-sensitive applications and services to take advantage of the increased bandwidth and manage it judiciously while maintaining critical vessel operations.
DigiGone's products and services are designed to integrate easily within your bandwidth management plan. Using 256-bit end-to-end AES encryption, they are both bandwidth sensitive and secure. All transmissions are secure and proprietary to you. Unlike other applications and services, with DigiGone, no one has access to or sees your information and transmissions, not even us.
