Mirou, the 'app' that facilitates communication for dependent people

The first time Marta Izquierdo put on PPE to work as a nursing assistant was on a night shift at the peak of the pandemic. The images of that day still persist in her memory. Her most overwhelming experience was dealing with dependent patients, with advanced dementia and brain damage who were in isolation. "I remember a patient who had suffered several brain injuries and had his mobile phone on the nightstand; he couldn't move or speak, but he could hear. But he went 21 days without knowing anything about his family," Izquierdo recalls two years later. Those experiences have served Izquierdo to launch what she hopes will be her future project.Mirou aims to be an application that allows making phone calls or telematics meetings to dependent people. The idea to develop this technology has been selected by the SpinUOC 2022 entrepreneurship program, promoted by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and aimed at students, professors, researchers, and management staff. Thanks to this, Mirou will be able to participate in the 2023 4 Years From Now (4YFN), the entrepreneurship fair of the Mobile World Congress (MWC).

In the most complicated stages of covid, "healthcare workers were not allowed to take patients' cell phones to put them in contact with their families. We ourselves were not allowed to have phones on us," she comments. Izquierdo thought that a system was needed for an individual to be able to address their loved ones without mediating with someone who had to hold a cell phone or press a button, but there was no option on the market that would be helpful for people with dependency and in isolation.

So the young woman took advantage of the fact that she was studying the university master's degree in Interaction Design and User Experience at the UOC to develop Mirou as her final project. The application is still in the testing phase, but Izquierdo has developed a prototype that has received the approval of a dozen residents, their families, and the staff of a Catalan healthcare center, where a small-scale pilot test has been carried out in a real scenario. The project ---which aims to be a reality within a year--- consists of a mobile application that will be available for any device.Its purpose will be to receive calls from authorized contacts and answer them directly without needing to attend to the device, connecting the user with their interlocutor instantlyThis concept, apparently simple, would break the patient's isolation, without depending on someone to help them establish connection with the outside. "Many times, patients cannot communicate with their relatives because visiting hours are limited or the healthcare staff cannot attend to them," says Izquierdo.The application would also free healthcare professionals from a certain care burden by not having to attend to enable communication between the patient and their relatives

This concept, apparently simple, would break the patient's isolation, without depending on someone to help them establish a connection with the outside world.

The UOC's entrepreneurship program is advising the Mirou team on the most optimal financing channels ---its leaders are opting to request public aid, as well as to launch a campaign ofcrowdfunding---, in addition to suggesting the most suitable business model for a project of these characteristics. What they do have clear is thatthe way to monetize Mirou would fall on a paid subscription plan, to respond to the needs of its users during the time they remain in a healthcare center and require the application to contact their loved ones. In addition, Marta Izquierdo's purpose is that the development not only be considered a technology that facilitates communication,but also aims to become a support platform for dependent people and their families.The initiative has received support from foundations such as the Associació Catalana de Traumàtics Cranioencefàlics i Dany Cerebral, which hopes to use Mirou among its members, as well as among patients in healthcare centers in Catalonia.