As ships gain more satellite bandwidth, telemedicine is gaining momentum onboard the vessels, Carnival Corporation’s Chief Health Officer Grant Tarling said.

“The ability to conduct a video consultation on the ship now is… something that we didn’t have three years ago,” he explained, noting that the technology allows for several breakthroughs.

Carnival now offers telepsychiatry and teledermatology services to address the health concerns of the crew and guests.

“For example, we have a telepsychiatry service that can do a video consultation within three hours, with a full report sent to the ship in one hour,” he explained, noting that, in the past, crew could wait for months to speak with a specialist.

“We’ve seen over a 90 percent drop in crew referrals ashore by using teledermatology,” Tarling said, noting a significant impact on onboard health indicators.

By sending high-quality photographs and descriptions of dermatological issues, many conditions are diagnosed and treated without the need for a crew member to leave the ship, he added.

Carnival also established new Health Operations Centers in recent years, which complement the onboard medical services and help ship teams with logistics.

“During the pandemic, we created these Health Operations Centers in Miami, Southampton, Hamburg and Sydney. Doctors on the ship have 24/7 access to a physician on call,” he said.

Three of these centers were retained after the health emergency and continue to offer help in situations like emergency evacuations, ensuring smooth communication between the medical teams, fleet operations and other departments.

“We believe we have an integrated package to not only optimize the medical care that’s being conducted on the ship, but if required, we have a dedicated team to work with the Fleet Operations Center to try and find the best evacuation option for the patient,” Tarling added.

MSC Cruises is also working on a similar system, which will centralize data to improve health outcomes for crew members and passengers.

“We have a lot of data, but it’s scattered across different systems … by sharing this data across the industry, we can create real population health analytics,” VP and Chief Medical Officer at MSC Cruises Management UK Dylan Belton said.

“We can learn from each other’s experiences and identify trends across cruise brands,” he continued.

MSC is also developing a health risk scoring system aimed at its crew and onboard staff members.

“We’re combining assessments from pre-employment medical exams and ongoing health evaluations to create a health score for each crew member,” Belton said.

“We can then push educational materials and wellness programs to help the crew improve their health scores.”