Bonfire Partners
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation between Erez Druk, the founder of Freed AI, an AI assistant for clinicians, and his wife, Dr. Gabi Meckler, a family physician. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Gabi Meckler
When I was in residency, I really began to feel the weight of notes.
I would stay in the hospital until midnight, writing notes. You’d come home and still have notes to do. They were constant — a fact of life. Some people suffer. Some even quit.
One day, my husband, Erez, asked me what would make my life easier. I jokingly said, “Can you just write my notes for me?”
Erez took the idea seriously. He started building something.
Erez Druk
I built a simple proof of concept using GPT, a customizable version of ChatGPT, over the course of a few hours. It was a bare bones version of Freed that allowed for patient instructions, which are what clinicians send to patients post-visit, and subjective notes, which clinicians use to document patients’ experience of their condition.
I showed it to Gabi. She said “interesting,” but told me it still needed a few improvements. It would break at times, it didn’t know the names of several medications, and wasn’t attuned to different specialities.
I knew I needed another data point beyond my wife, so I solicited the opinion of our friend, another clinician. She came over for dinner, I showed her the product, and her response was very different — one of immediate excitement. She texted the next day asking to use it.
I knew we were on to something.
We moved fast from there. It took some work to make it HIPAA compliant. I wanted to get a beta version out quickly. We got some clinicians to test it. We asked them for feedback constantly. Building Freed isn’t just about vision or strategy — it’s about listening to users and iterating based on what they need.
Meckler
When I started working at a clinic, after residency, I began using Freed every day. I could finally finish my notes before leaving the office. One time, I forgot to send a referral for a patient, but Freed reminded me. That moment made me realize how much Freed was helping, not just with time, but with the details that I might have missed otherwise.
Other doctors at the clinic noticed, too. They’d come to me and say, “Your husband? He saved me hours of work.” That was rewarding.
One thing I love is that Erez takes my input seriously. He really understands the nuances that matter to clinicians, and the team is learning too.
Druz
Gabi holds a weekly office hour with the product managers and designers where they share their work with her. She offers her perspective on what’s useful and what isn’t.
It’s surprising — or maybe not — that even after spending a lot of time with clinicians, there’s always more to learn. We can never truly be in their shoes, there’s a constant depth and nuance to uncover. That’s why this setup is so valuable: It helps us get closer to understanding how they think and what’s genuinely useful to them.
Meckler
Freed, as the name suggests, is all about freedom. Our goal wasn’t to tell clinicians how to use their time — we simply wanted to give it back to them.
That mindset really influences our marketing. We’re very intentional about not telling clinicians what they should do — they know better than anyone else. We don’t tell clinicians to be heroes or push messages like maintain “eye contact” or “spend more time with patients.” You probably already make enough eye contact. And if you want to Netflix and chill, great.
We’re not here to tell people how to be better doctors.
Druz
Managing the relationship between husband and wife, founder and consumer, innovator and advisor — isn’t always easy. It’s definitely annoying sometimes to get feedback that is correct.
Meckler
I think we do it well, though, I don’t know how we do it.
I try to be specific about feedback. Like, this is something you absolutely have to change before moving forward, versus this would be nice, or it’s a bit iffy.
I told Erez that we needed to incorporate patient instructions. They include a summary of the visit and clear instructions based on the action plan created during the appointment. The goal is to make them easy for patients to read, understand, and follow. It’s now one of the most loved features of Freed.
We’re building a document analyzer now at the request of users. It will take any clinical document and give the clinician a summary. Users can also ask questions, and it will provide short responses with references from the document.
This whole time, since we launched in January 2023, Erez has been learning about medicine, and I’ve been learning about startups. So, I know he has to move fast. That’s why I focus only on the most important things, and I push really hard when it matters.
I’ve loved being involved as part of our relationship.
Meckler
Work is really my second obsession after Gabi — and I’m obsessed with work. So the fact that we can talk about everything, and she knows the people in the team, and what we’re working on, is really fun.
We created Freed together. It’s a love letter from us, our team, to all the clinicians out there.
The post We built an AI assistant to give doctors something they rarely have: time appeared first on Business Insider.
