Erez Druk, co-founder and CEO of Freed.
Courtesy: Freed
For Erez Druk, who spent almost 4 years working at Facebook, constructing health-care startup Freed has been a labor of affection, quite literally.Â
Druk’s wife, Dr. Gabi Meckler, works at a community clinic in northern California, where she cares for kids and adults, and delivers babies at a neighborhood hospital. When not with patients, Meckler is inundated with paperwork, always updating medical records and related documents.
“I got sucked into the world of clinicians,” Druk said in an interview. “At some point, it was like, ‘Hey Gabi, what should we just construct for you?’ And he or she said, ‘Do my notes for me.'”
Druk worked as a software engineer at Facebook from 2013 until launching his prior startup, UrbanLeap, in 2017. He shuttered UrbanLeap, which focused on software for public procurement, in 2022, and commenced Freed the next yr, together with Andrey Bannikov, who had spent the prior decade at Facebook.
Freed offers an AI scribe that automates the clinical notetaking process in real time as doctors consensually record their visits with patients. The corporate sells the technology on to individual clinicians, oftentimes at small or independent practices, for $99 a month, and is starting to partner with entire practices, Druk said.Â
On Wednesday, Freed announced a $30 million funding round led by Sequoia Capital, a hefty haul for a corporation raising its first institutional capital. The corporate also announced latest features like custom note formatting, pre-charting, and specialty specific templates. Freed said it plans to construct additional capabilities, like automating coding and other billing cycle functions.Â
Clinicians spend nearly nine hours per week on documentation, in accordance with an October study from Google Cloud. A study last yr from Athenahealth concluded that administrative tasks are a big reason for burnout, as 64% of doctors feel overwhelmed by clerical requirements.
Physicians are chargeable for completing mountains of paperwork, including the tedious and time-consuming means of clinical notes, which contain detailed records of patient visits.
Druk desires to automate as much of that process as possible so doctors can spend more time with patients and, perhaps, even with their family.
As of late February, 17,000 clinicians all over the world are using Freed in about 2 million patient visits every month, he said.
“It just began spreading,” Druk said. “It’s really been beyond my wildest expectations.”
Crowded field
Druk is not the just one who sees the chance.
The AI scribing market has exploded lately as health systems have been trying to find tools that can assist address administrative burnout. Freed goes up against tech giants like Microsoft, in addition to startups like Abridge and Suki which have developed similar tools.Â
Josephine Chen, a partner at Sequoia, said the crowded market reflects the seriousness of the issue. She said Freed’s scribing tool has gained traction by specializing in smaller, independent offices.
“Freed’s approach is exclusive because many of the corporations we see are serving a special market segment,” Chen said.Â
Natalie Desseyn said Freed is the explanation she’s still working as a nurse practitioner in psychiatry.
Desseyn sees about 250 patients through a practice called Cloud Break Therapy in Virginia. She’s been using Freed for about two years and pays for it herself. Without it, she said she would not have the option to see patients on such a big scale, if in any respect.Â
“I’m not over here writing, so people feel really heard,” Desseyn said. “I am unable to inform you all of the ways, it’s literally modified my life.”Â
Desseyn has tried just a few other AI scribing tools, but she said she all the time comes back to Freed. She said its model is best at keeping things precise, sticking to the facts and avoiding extraneous comments within the notes.
Meckler, Druk’s wife, said documentation was the thing she disliked essentially the most while practicing medicine. She said Freed felt like “magic” the primary time she used it.
Previously, Meckler said she would spend about half of her day writing notes. Individual tasks that used to take her around quarter-hour to finish now take closer to 2, she said.
“I expect great things from Erez, but I used to be still shocked,” Meckler said.Â
Druk said he and his 50-person team are focused on constructing the business and its product portfolio this yr. He said he stays committed to making a platform that clinicians, and his wife, enjoy using.
“It’s truly essentially the most fulfilling and a very powerful work I’ve ever done, and possibly will ever do,” he said.
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