Artificial intelligence is improving medical care at sea for seafarers

Imagine being the cook on a container ship, five days from the nearest port. You've had stomach pain for three days. The pain is shifting to your lower right side, and you’ve been vomiting repeatedly. Is it just something you ate – or could it be appendicitis?

Your only support is the chief officer. He completed a two-week medical course two years ago, but has no formal training and limited English skills. Still, he now has to examine you. Based on his observations and a written report, a doctor on land will have to make a diagnosis – and decide whether you need treatment onboard or an emergency evacuation.

For seafarers far from land, this kind of situation is all too real. Up to now, medical support has depended on email or phone contact with a doctor via a telemedicine provider. But artificial intelligence offers a new approach – one where medical records are more structured, more accurate and far easier to work with.

Peter Biesenbach, associate professor at the Department of Regional Health Research, has long worked with telemedical support for seafarers.

– I’ve frequently encountered challenges caused by language barriers, cultural differences and limited medical training among crew members, he explains.

In collaboration with Adrian Radomski, postdoctoral researcher at the Maersk McKinney Møller Institute, Peter Biesenbach has developed Marina Health – a prototype system that uses artificial intelligence to support medical assessments at sea.

– There was a real need to bring more structure and clarity to maritime medical records. An evacuation from sea to hospital is both time-consuming and expensive – and not always necessary, says Biesenbach.

Built for the realities of maritime life

Marina Health is designed to meet the unique challenges of the maritime environment. It can process different accents and filter out the background noise typical on board, making communication with healthcare professionals clearer and more reliable.

Through a subscription platform, seafarers can access the system and are guided step by step through a structured medical questionnaire.

Trained on anonymised maritime cases and standardised medical records, Marina Health is built to understand life at sea – and to handle clinical data efficiently.

– We believe Marina Health is a vital tool for raising the quality of care at sea, whether it’s a medical emergency or a routine check-in, says Peter Biesenbach.

– It makes communication more effective and helps avoid misunderstandings, which ultimately boosts patient safety.

Looking ahead, the researchers hope Marina Health can be applied in other remote settings – including offshore environments like oil rigs.

The solution has already gained recognition by winning the Maritime Stars start-up competition.