Case Study: Mercy Ships achieves efficient global coordination for life-saving surgeries with Atlassian

Atlassian helps Mercy Ships deliver free life-changing healthcare to developing nations

Mercy Ships is a global humanitarian NGO that operates the world’s largest civilian hospital ship to deliver free, life-changing surgeries in developing nations. With 1,200 staff and volunteers working across North America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, and Asia—including 400 people on the 500-foot Africa Mercy—teams were hampered by email, disparate systems, and paper-based processes that made coordinating complex logistics and supply shipments difficult.

Mercy Ships implemented Atlassian tools—Confluence (branded “Navigator”) as a central knowledge hub, Jira Software and Jira Service Desk for operations and project tracking, HipChat for communication, and Bamboo for automated testing. These systems now manage everything from medical supply inventories and 40-foot shipping containers to ship maintenance, staff onboarding, and onboard applications, improving coordination across captains, surgeons, and support teams and freeing budget (via community licenses) to fund more life-saving surgeries.

Mercy Ships

Chris Gregg

Chief Information Officer