It’s hard to believe that 2024 is already more than half over, but it’s been a phenomenal year so far at VIKAND. As the height of summer approaches for many of us, I wanted to take a moment and reflect on our collective accomplishments over the past six months.

VIKAND forged many important new partnerships across all segments of the maritime industry, including world-class operators such as Aroya Cruises, MOL Cruises, V.Ships Greece, Gourdomichalis Maritime S.A., AllSeas Inc. and more. Many of these relationships can be traced back to February, when we launched OneHealth by VIKAND at the US Embassy in London. There, we had a chance to share our vision: Investing in crew members can safeguard both an operator’s business and the sustainability of the maritime industry’s most important asset – the people who make it possible.

As we explored medical emergency data from 2023, several interesting trends emerged. First, mental health is a growing concern. With related emergencies up 7% year-over-year, it is critical that we continue to educate the industry on how to better manage mental health issues at sea, starting with normalising their existence. Crew members should have no shame about opening up and asking for help, just as they would if they were suffering from the flu or an injury.

In keeping with our belief that proactive healthcare is more effective than reactive, we continue to advocate for earlier – and easier – access to emotional support systems. In fact, we consolidated our Maritime Assistance Program to offer more complete support for crew wellness in one platform. True health requires prevention, communication, training and education around every facet of crew wellbeing.

VIKAND’s commitment to proactive crew care continues to expand with new technology partnerships with Neuron, Scoutbase and Riverr. Our long-term vision is to move beyond healthcare crisis management and focus more fully on healthcare management and prevention, and we believe these tech partners will help usher in a new era of predictive healthcare at sea.

As we look forward to the second half of 2024 and beyond, VIKAND will keep crew members and seafarers at the heart of our mission to foster safe, productive maritime operations. We believe operators can achieve this through the flexible, efficient and easy-to-implement measures offered by VIKAND.

In closing, you’re invited to our free upcoming Webinar titled “How AI will Change Healthcare in the Cruise Industry,” on July 30th at 9AM EST. Together with Ronald Spithout, Managing Director of OneHealth, I will be discussing how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to transform healthcare in the cruise sector.

In this edition of Pulse, take a deeper look at VIKAND’s biomedical capex planning services, learn why taking a new approach to PEMEs could change how mental health issues impact crew employability, enjoy a short video about mental health solutions, and learn about VIKAND’s new partnership with Mitsui Ocean Cruises.