The Case for Clinician-First Healthcare

Freed - Erez Druk

In this episode, we’re joined by Erez Druk, founder and CEO of Freed, to explore what happens when healthcare technology is built for clinicians: not hospitals, payers, or administrators.

Erez shares the lessons from his first startup, why “who you build for” is the most important decision a founder can make, and how watching physician burnout up close through his wife and close friends in medicine led to the creation of Freed. We dive into why clinician burnout is a structural problem, how misaligned incentives and system complexity drive doctors out of medicine, and why AI may be one of the few tools capable of absorbing the complexity humans shouldn’t have to carry. The conversation also covers product-led growth in healthcare, building technology clinicians actually love, and what a truly clinician-first healthcare system could look like over the next decade.