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Fixing Clinical Burnout with AI | Lauren Funaro of Freed | The Brainiac Blueprint Podcast

  • Acy Rodriguez
  • Nov 2
  • 35 min read

Updated: Nov 10

In this episode of The Brainiac Blueprint Podcast, we’re joined by Lauren Funaro, Content Marketing Manager at Freed, to uncover how AI can enhance clinical workflows without replacing human empathy or connection.


Lauren shares why the real challenge is figuring out where AI genuinely helps, and where it falls flat. Her message is clear: Human empowerment isn’t lost, it's amplified.


She breaks down how Freed’s AI scribe has already saved millions of clinician hours and is evolving into a true assistant. With insights on content strategy, trust building, and creating tools that put clinicians first, this conversation is packed with practical takeaways.


Full transcript below.


🎧 Watch or listen to The Brainiac Blueprint Podcast:  


⏱ In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 – Intro

00:34 – Meet Lauren Funaro and Freed: their mission to reduce clinician burden using AI

05:07 – Freed has saved over 2.5 million clinician hours since 2023

06:17 – Evolving beyond the AI scribe to a full clinician assistant

13:17 – Building trust in content

29:03 – Where AI works, where it doesn’t, and why humans still matter

31:16 – Human empowerment: “Use AI to free you up for the fun stuff”

38:07 – Content should have depth, not just surface - level summaries

42:08 – Creating specialty - specific content hubs and workflow templates

44:44 – Product development powered by user interaction (not patient data)

49:08 – Empathy - first tools built to empower clinicians


🔗Lauren Funaro


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Episode Full Transcript:


Kyle: Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of The Brainiac Blueprint, where we discuss the intersection of AI and how it impacts the business world around us with our esteemed guests. I’m your host, Kyle Lambert, founder of Left Brain AI and Action Hero Marketing.


Today is another episode in our healthcare series, where we’re going to be discussing an AI medical scribe. With that being said, welcome to the show, Lauren Funaro.


Lauren: Hi, Kyle. I’m so happy to be here. I’m Lauren Funaro, Content Marketing Manager at Freed. We’re an AI medical scribe and clinician assistant. Our goal is to reduce the documentation and administrative burden on individual clinicians and small and medium practices. It’s been a wild and fun ride so far, and I’m so excited to talk about it.


Kyle: Amazing. I think everybody likes less administrative burden - especially when you’re dealing with lives and everything that comes with healthcare.


So yeah, let’s jump right in. Lauren, as we do with all of our guests, I like to start with this question. Please finish the prompt: I think AI is…


Lauren: I think AI is about making the work we care about easier - and making the work we don’t like to do disappear as much as possible.

 At Freed, we believe AI can help small and independent practices thrive instead of just survive right now.


For marketing teams like mine, that means smarter and faster insights, storytelling at a grander scale, and creating real relationships with the time we save.


Kyle: That’s incredible. I feel like we’ve all been begging for this tool that lets us do the stuff we love and stop doing the stuff we don’t.


Lauren: Exactly. And clinicians have a unique experience where the job they have to do is then piled on with administrative work that’s really someone else’s full - time job.


Kyle: I think about that all the time. There’s so much stress in healthcare - emotional highs and lows. You’ve got the amazing success stories: you cured someone, you delivered a baby. Then there are the tough moments - delivering bad news or worse.


So to then have to go write notes and prescriptions afterward… it must be exhausting, almost like reliving the whole experience.


Lauren: You’re totally right. And if you think about the cognitive load - how much anyone takes on in a day - we’ve seen clinicians say they spend 19 hours a week on documentation. That’s usually after their workday, taking away time from family. Or they do it in between sessions, with no chance to mentally reset.


They want to deliver quality care, they love their patients, but they also love who they are outside of their job. It’s our responsibility to help them do that without spending all their time staring at screens and clicking buttons.


Kyle: Very cool. Let’s dive deeper. You’re the Content Marketing Manager at Freed - walk us through what that looks like. What’s your day - to - day like?


Lauren: Sure. A little background first - over the last five years, I’ve worked primarily in SaaS, especially fast - scaling startups. My last company was a tool called Scribe - not to be confused with Freed! We raised our Series B while I was there and increased traffic from 8,000 to over 130,000 in two years, which I’m very proud of.


Now at Freed, it’s all about building community and creating content that connects with clinicians. We just raised our Series A - $30 million from Sequoia, which was very exciting.


Kyle: Congrats. That’s amazing.


Lauren: Thank you! I just celebrated my one - year anniversary as a “Freedo” - that’s what we call ourselves.


Kyle: A Freedo? I like that. Always good to have a fun team nickname.


Lauren: Right? We’ve really leaned into it. We also increased our domain rating from 30 to 50 as of this morning, and we’ve quadrupled our year - over - year ARR growth with a community of over 20,000 paying clinicians.


And here’s my favorite stat - we’ve saved 2.5 million clinician hours since launching in 2023.


Kyle: 2.5 million hours - that’s huge.


Lauren: I'm so excited to see it, and I know it's only going to grow as the tool evolves.


Kyle: Yeah, 100%. So, you know, getting the Series A is huge. That's very exciting. I'm curious - you know, I know you may not be able to share too much detail - but I'm curious if you know how or like what changes are coming, whether that’s something directly with your role, maybe it’s product advancements - what kind of exciting stuff can we expect?


Lauren: I’m going to give you the vaguest and as specific answer as I can give. So our roadmap, especially in the next six months, is really exciting. And it’s primarily around this evolution from what was an AI scribe to what is now a fully fledged clinician assistant.


So we’re looking into how we can specifically support that before and after. Because right now, we’re focused solely on that experience within the visit and getting the note. How can we support before the patient even walks in the room? And then how can we support that connection with getting that content out where it needs to get?


And then looking at the specificity of both the clinician themselves - what’s their specialty? How can the note match that use case? And then how can we support the larger clinician experience throughout that use case?


Kyle: Got it. Very, very cool. Very cool. I love that it’s, you know, evolving quickly. And I’m sure it’s going to be an interesting next couple of years here for you guys.


Lauren: I think it’s going to be an interesting five months. The next years, I can’t even imagine.


Kyle: I was going to say, I mean, like, the next quarter is just going to - so many changes and things coming in. Yeah, that’s going to be fun. Plenty of content for you to work on, I’m sure.


Lauren: Absolutely. I have a lot of job security.


Kyle: Nice, nice. That’s perfect.


So let’s jump into the content a little bit. You know, when you and I were connecting - and obviously you provided a little bit of detail there - what does your strategy look like when you’re coming up with content? I know you’re trying to be helpful for the clinicians, and obviously there’s always a lens of influencing the buyer and decision - making journey. So what is your high - level strategy? What are you hoping to accomplish? What does that look like?


Lauren: Well, we’re a tightly connected, data - driven system, and really we’re a genuine PLG motion. So we’re speaking to both the individual clinician and then those small to medium - sized practices with everything we develop. We’re looking at brand building and topical authority as our primary top of funnel. Then we’re looking at how we can create that demand capture system.


And then we’re going over into lifecycle to see how we can nurture the individual clinician and then hopefully broaden that experience to the larger group.


Kyle: Amazing. So are there different channels that you’re focusing on for each one of those steps? I assume there’s almost like, you know, LinkedIn is great for establishing authority, and then your CRM is a lot of nurturing. So I’m sure there’s a lot of consistent marketing strategy there. But I’m curious if there’s anything different or noteworthy from your guys’ perspective.


Lauren: I would say there is, especially with GEO on the horizon and looking at how we can make our impression exist on this black box of search. My primary search was always within organic channels, and as we’ve looked to evolve, we want to find where the clinicians are. So where are those forums? Where are those larger publications that we want to exist on? Because that’s where they’re already at.


And then it’s looking at how can we build a larger identity for the entity that is our brand existing in the internet ecosystem and make it so that when folks are searching for questions that are tangentially related to us, we pop up as the right solution. So it’s looking at broadening from creating SEO on our site - which is always near and dear to my heart - but also figuring out where those impressions can exist in public forums.


LinkedIn is actually not so much one that we prioritize solely because clinicians aren’t as active on LinkedIn. But we do look at other social channels. We’ve been fostering an organic community actually that was built by clinicians in Facebook. And we sort of just exist in there to provide them with support from us.


It’s been a matter of finding what makes sense to place ourselves in and then really leaning in to the questions clinicians are asking so we can provide something helpful and useful. And then in terms of that more middle of funnel and lifecycle, it’s creating that education through the standard channels - email, building a very robust help center, giving folks the chance to talk to us - which more often than not gives me a lot of content to create already.


Kyle: I’m sure. I’m sure. How do you identify what forums or what channels you want to be focusing on? Is it as simple as just going on and conducting a Google search, or you’re talking to people and you just know what publications are popular in healthcare, or is it a little bit more sophisticated than that?


Lauren: It is unfortunately never as easy as conducting a Google search. So we have had user surveys that have given us a lot of data, but I also had the luckiness to be able to meet with several clinicians. I’ve met with about 50 in the last year, and I’m sure I’ll keep meeting with them.


And as I meet them, I’m asking, “What publications are you reading? What social channels are you on?” So we’re able to blend that anecdotal data with the larger survey responses that give us a pretty solid understanding of where to go.


Kyle: Got it. Very cool. I’m curious - and I don’t want to put you on the spot and make you look bad - but as a marketer, you know, I think there’s always a need to kind of justify your efforts and what it is that you’re working on. And I think there are so many - whether it’s a healthcare professional or a client of mine at an agency - where they’re just like, “We’re going to test this out for a couple months, and if it doesn’t work, we’re going to stop.”


So I’m curious - and obviously that’s not the right way to think about it; you get some data, you optimize, you have to keep going - so I’m curious if you have any situations like that where you’re having to relay this to somebody who doesn’t necessarily get marketing and how you do that. And additionally, I’m curious if you’ve just had something that just flat out hasn’t worked and kind of what you learned from that.


Lauren: Oh, I think that’s such a good question. I don’t know if we’ve had something that hasn’t worked where we’ve put the kibosh and said, “We’re not going to enter that channel.” But in terms of providing impact, especially in a Series A startup, I think metrics are your golden goose. What can I make sure is going to prove this tangible value, and how clear can I be from the outset that this is what I expect?


So for example, with organic, you’re going to be looking at traffic, but really you’re looking at, how does this support my free trials? And if I can tell a story that showcases which content is directly supporting that, we have a strong layer there.

And then if we’re able to look at our domain rating increasing and prove that that supports us showing up in these GEO searches, sometimes it’s just a matter of having them go and search it themselves and see if we show up, and then saying, “These are the efforts that we’ve made that have contributed to that.”


I think that helps ease the pain a bit. Sometimes it’s going to take long, and the best I can do is give them a very clear expectation for what I expect to happen and when I expect it to happen.


And I have had conversations where I’ve truly believed in an effort, and I’ve been asking the team, “Can we please continue to support this?” and then the results will show up six months down the line. And I’ve been very lucky to have a team that is willing and interested in trying these different efforts to see what’s going to support what.


Kyle: Having that trust and that long - term view - that is music to my ears. Good on you. You must be good at translating that and navigating those conversations.


Lauren: I think in many ways, I’m just a lucky girl with a great team. But yes, here’s the benefit that we’ve shown historically with SEO, for example. But if we’ve created something that isn’t going to directly impact, how can we associate it with the things that will?


Kyle: Amazing. So you referenced GEO a couple of times there - for anybody who’s listening who isn’t familiar, that is generative engine optimization, having to do with all of the AI tools that are, you know, the ChatGPTs, the AI overviews on Google, all of that kind of stuff. So you’ve had a little bit of success - we’ve talked about this - you’re starting to rank on some of those engines, your domain rank has improved significantly.


Curious as to what has worked for you guys. What is helping you to get some more exposure on those platforms?


Lauren: Existing beyond our website is the biggest advice I can give, as well as identifying individuals who also have garnered their own topical authority and collaborating with them. So - I like to, not I like to - this is the truth: everything that exists on the internet is an entity. So I, myself, Lauren Funaro, am a content marketer. I can publish to my own LinkedIn. I can write guest posts.


And I have garnered a level of authority in content marketing. When I’m publishing for a healthcare brand, I want to identify the sites, the individuals, and whatever other forum is related to myself as Freed - an AI medical scribe, AI clinician assistant - so we can exist on them and then we can have them move on to our site.


If I have an author on my site, for example, I work with a brilliant nurse practitioner. Her name is Erica Dorn, and she runs a nurse practitioner charting school. She’s already garnered that authority in medical charting. When she publishes to my site, it’s a compounding effect of her building that tangential relationship with our name associated with charting, and her name associated with charting.


Kyle: That’s very smart. I think that’s overlooked by a lot of marketers and just probably not understood by a lot of people, especially again in the healthcare space. So is this an active outreach that you’re doing - you’re identifying these people, you’re reaching out to them through email as kind of like a cold campaign and trying to say, “Hey, let’s collaborate”? Or do you have these kind of existing relationships already built in?


Lauren: I have the luxury of having excellent users who are actually these clinicians. So Erica Dorn, who I mentioned, is a Freed user. And we did have a smaller ambassador program, which we’re right now not pursuing. I think it’s more so about finding the individuals who can make the greatest impact and building a relationship with them and seeing the longevity of it.


So to answer your question, I have not had to do any outbound. I do imagine there is a world where I will as we start to scale.


Kyle: Well, you know, it’s so funny - every one of these conversations I have keeps on reinforcing this. We are in this digital world, this AI world. People talk about robots and all this kind of stuff. The thing that still matters is that human element, that human interaction. You have this person that is an expert, that provides real - you know, the term people like to use is “UGC” or user - generated content - real insights, real perspective.


And it has a large impact for your marketing, for your ranking, and for your business.


Lauren: Yes, yes.


Kyle: It’s very cool to see. I’m curious - do you provide guidelines to these people? I’m sure there’s some kind of “don’t just go off on tangents and say whatever you want.” Can you help us with a certain thing?


Lauren: A lot of what we create is in a partnership with one another. So I do have a pretty robust hub of what makes excellent content to support whatever the end goal is of the content - what terms we might use, what is going to specifically answer the query that we’re trying to support.


But really, it’s a matter of working with that person to then identify what is useful and then figuring out what distribution looks like. When you’re not limited to search, you’re then able to create content that can be distributed everywhere.

And in that world, we’re now answering questions that have been directly shared with me from clinicians. So finding the person who best serves to respond to that answer - they usually know more about it than I do or will - so how can I give them the platform to leverage that expertise while also speaking to a layman so that they have the opportunity to be as clear and less full of jargon as possible?


Kyle: You know, you’re hitting right at home. I was just reading a post about Mark Cuban - how he never uses acronyms or, you know, just jargony industry terms - because it’s just like, nobody wants to hear that. And it’s easier to understand. He obviously can talk to everybody about any acronym or any business term, but he’s like, “Let’s keep it simple so anybody can understand.”


And that’s going to help increase my reach a little bit more. And people share it - you know, I’m referencing him right now.


Lauren: Exactly. I’ve already failed because I said GEO. But it’s hard as a marketer to get out of the acronyms.


Kyle: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, we’re just - I mean, one of my questions that I was going to ask you about was Google’s E - E - A - T. So, you know, it’s - yeah. Well, let’s hear about it. So how do you approach it? What is your strategy? Explain it to the people who don’t know what it is. I’m just curious how Freed approaches that.


Lauren: So E - E - A - T, my best friend and worst enemy. So we’re looking at expertise, we’re looking at experience, we’re looking at authority, and we’re looking at trustworthiness. This is, of course, also supporting a traditional SEO search engine optimization play, where you’re pulling keywords into the content.

What it really means, in my understanding of it, is that we want to showcase the expertise of the person creating the content and then compound that with authority within the topic. And that authority can mean links from pages that are helping build the ecosystem within the topic.


I’m going to use an example to help illustrate it. So let’s say AI scribe is what I want to get authority on. I’m going to build an article that is going to describe what an AI scribe is. I’m going to have someone who has used an AI scribe use “I” and “we” statements - “Here’s how I used it.” Can I include screenshots within an actual product that shows I’ve been within the tool and I’m not just speaking as someone trying to sell a tool?


Can I then have that writer be someone like Erica Dorn, who has experience within medical charting? And then can I build other pages linking to this page so that my authority has now been built by the doorways of these links?


So I tend to look at individual pages as part of the broader topic using hub and spoke. But when someone asks me, for example, “How do you optimize a page?” I usually take a step back and say, “This one page is part of this larger ecosystem.” And that’s really how I’m fulfilling E - E - A - T.


A lot of the time, I’ll get a direct quote from someone who can talk about their unique experience. For example, I created a SOAP note templates article, and I was able to work with real clinicians to build and showcase their templates.

Those are the different ways that we provide that helpful, actually useful content - and then, of course, including those keywords to help Google figure out what the heck you’re talking about. And that’s worked very well for us.


Kyle: Amazing. Amazing. Very cool to hear. I like the hub - and - spoke kind of model and focus there. It’s always good to have different topics, different content buckets - that’s always what I like to call it. I don’t know, just a fun way, I guess, to say it. So what do your buckets look like? I assume there’s a product one, there’s just a general business one, maybe a healthcare update, maybe an AI - scribe one. I’m curious what that looks like for you.


Lauren: We try to stay as tight and deep as possible. What I’ve been seeing is that when people publish outside of their depth, they’re actually getting negatively impacted. So right now we have a lot on SOAP notes, medical charting - AI scribe is one, but that actually extends out into scribe in general. So we have a content lever on medical scribing - what that process looks like, who medical scribes are - and then we extend out further into this ambient listening, ambient - technology space.


So I try to find the thread between them all and then go as deep as possible, both in the educational content and also in the product description. Another, much more brilliant - than - me SEO futurist - I think her name is Jess Schultz - talks about how in GEO specifically they are looking to differentiate you. So if you’re talking about, say, a bag, how can you differentiate your bag by saying it has this many zippers, it is this color, it’s made of this material? And we do the same when we educate folks on Freed.


So we’ve created content about how our AI operates, who specifically we’re serving in these specialties. We’ve dug really deeply into the product itself so that we can tell a story throughout all of these distribution channels beyond SEO and GEO.


Kyle: Very cool. That’s interesting. That’s very actionable insight people can take. So I want to put a bow on that and just kind of help out other healthcare marketers. I myself am not a content marketer by trade - I was raised in the arms of paid media. I’m an ads guy. So having to switch over to a content strategy for my agency has been awkward, to say the least, and a new challenge.


So I’m curious what your advice would be for someone who’s like, “All right, I need to start building my authority and my trustworthiness - but how do I do it without having that imposter syndrome, without feeling awkward in front of a camera? Where do I start when there are a million places and a million things to talk about?”


Lauren: For your first steps, I have two pieces of advice. One, I would talk to as many content marketers as you can. I’ve reached out to so many strangers on LinkedIn, and almost all - if not all - have been willing to just sit and have a chat with me, because you don’t know what you don’t know. And content marketing - I’ve been talking about SEO, but that’s just one channel.


So that leads me to my second answer, which would be: really get to know your audience. Learn how they speak, what they’re looking at, what they care about, what they don’t care about, how they want to read. For example, at Freed, when we’re creating especially non - SEO content, we make it a point to make it as concise as possible - two to three minutes max.


We actually call our blog Note Bloat, which is an inside joke: clinicians call too - long notes “note bloat.” And that’s because we want to give them something quick, quippy - something that can provide value immediately, maybe make them laugh, dig into something they’re interested in. And we wouldn’t have any of that understanding if I hadn’t spoken to several clinicians and gotten feedback that said, “This doesn’t work for me. I’m not interested in this.”


Sometimes the format needs to be video. Sometimes it needs to live where that clinician is going to find it. So those I would do before you build anything. Then you identify those channels - what’s most relevant, most useful, going to get the most bang for your buck - and then learn as much as you can about that channel.

And make mistakes - especially if you have a team that’s willing to let you play around and publish. If you don’t create something, you have nothing to optimize. The best lesson I’ve learned is that when I publish a significant amount, I learn so much by whether or not that converted to trials, by whether or not I was getting the traffic I wanted, by whether or not people were learning and using the product more. So I hope those are helpful.


Kyle: I support everything you just said there - especially the part about making mistakes and just going for it. One of my mantras, especially when it comes to content creation, is progress over perfection, meaning let’s just do it. You know, I could sit here and try to get that perfect image or perfect headline for the next 30 minutes or an hour, and it still could bomb. So let’s just get it out there, let the data dictate - stop sitting here worrying about it.


Lauren: I do too. I love learning something new and tackling a new channel. A lot of content marketing is trial and error. You don’t know the tools, you don’t know what you’re trying to dig into until you figure it out yourself. So I highly encourage people to just go for it.


Kyle: Yes, please do. I also want to highlight one additional thing you said, because I think it’s very, very important - it’s the conversations that you had with the clinicians. If any marketers out there are listening - if you have customers, they should be a huge resource for your content.


One of my favorite projects I worked on years ago - this was maybe 2015 - was for a local hospital. We interviewed doctors and patients, created this whole network of content, and we doubled their transplants in just one year. And it’s all because we used their exact words. It’s such an untapped resource, and you should be milking it for as much as you can.


Lauren: You’re exactly right. And I had started as an SEO, and I think I leaned too heavily on keyword research first. And now it’s like I can add it in after I’ve had the conversations - after I understand the questions and where the real interest lies - and then the keyword research goes on top of that to help identify where the search demand actually is.


So I cannot stress enough: I’ve gotten so many ideas - like, I met with a clinician in our community randomly because she had a question about our tool. And in digging into it, I was able to create a demo, but then I also was able to inform the product team that “Hey, this is really confusing - what can we do to refine this?” And I think that directly impacts how the product is built when everyone on your team has a unique understanding of the user’s perspective.


Kyle: Absolutely. There’s always a new idea that can come from it - or even just a different word being used sometimes resonates.


Lauren: Oh, it’s so true. Clinicians have so many different terms that they use reflexively. I actually have a sheet that I keep populating of what clinician jargon is. Like, a “golden weekend” means you got your Saturday and your Sunday off.


Kyle: Oh wow, look at that.


Lauren: I know.


Kyle: That’s so good. I feel like that’s a fun little piece of content for you right there - sharing that.


Lauren: Totally.


Kyle: All right, I want to jump into AI a little bit - obviously a little bit more in terms of how it impacts your content, your creation process, your overall workflow. So do you have AI included in your process - your research, your creation? What does that look like today?


Lauren: Yes, we do have AI. And I think people think when you use AI on a marketing team that that means AI is writing everything, creating everything, and the team is just sitting and twiddling their thumbs. Unfortunately, I do have a job to do.


But what I think the real play here is, is figuring out where AI is actually useful and where it falls flat and needs that human intervention. I’ve found the most success in using AI for analysis. So, for example, if I’m looking at competitors and trying to identify what the gaps are in our content, it’s incredibly useful. Or if I’m looking at what is and isn’t performing for us and I want to summarize that in a beautiful chart - that’s where AI has been so supportive for me.


We have a brilliant teammate - his name is Nate - he’s our creative director, who created a ChatGPT that’s lined up specifically with our marketing goals. So I can just have a conversation with it to pull out that data and analysis.


And then, of course, it’s great for content repurposing, for helping you scale plans - and that’s where I find it works the best. In actual content creation, I think it’s an awesome first draft. I would never publish a piece of content written by AI, because what’s really successful - and we’ve seen this with GEO, but we also see it in what resonates - is that specificity.


So I need to have a person who knows what they’re talking about to layer this content with something grounded in actual usefulness. If it’s a specific workflow, if it’s an expert insight, if it’s a statistic - AI can never pull that in the way that an actual human interaction can.


So if we use AI to give us the foundation - to get us moving more quickly - and then we’re able to get the people involved, pull the insights from experts, layer it with actual workflows, then you get a really excellent piece of content.


And it’s great because then I can create a post on whatever social channel; I can repurpose this from a blog to a one - pager. So that’s why I see it as a collaborator. I see it as a partner. And in doing that, I’m able to work much more quickly, but I also get the value and the part of my job that I love, which is the chance to get creative and to connect with our clinicians by working directly with them and with our brilliant team to layer that content and make it something great.


Kyle: Human empowerment - use AI to make you be able to do the fun stuff like you were talking about earlier.


Lauren: That’s the goal.


Kyle: So now that Freed has a lot of investment money on the way, do you have an AI tool or anything like that you’re hoping to pitch for and integrate into your systems?


Lauren: Ooh, that is such a great question. I’ve used some really incredible AI tools. One of them was Letterdrop - they’ve pivoted a bit; now they’re focusing more on LinkedIn, which I totally get - but what they used for SEO optimization has been absolutely brilliant, and I’ve loved it.


Then of course I’m using Ahrefs and SEMrush - I’ve been tag - teaming both from a search perspective. If I were to figure out which of those is going to support me best, I think I’m going to be an Ahrefs girl. I’m going to see if I can lean in for the more expensive play and get ChatGPT insights.


But next - we actually had a hackathon last week with our team. We had a company off - site, and our AI team was able to build this brilliant tool that’s helping me monitor trends and use those trends to create those first drafts so that my team and I can then start building excellent content for and beyond SEO and GEO.


And so I might not have to buy any more - I might be able to use what our awesome team has made.


Kyle: Best - case scenario right there.


Lauren: I feel very lucky.


Kyle: When you say identify trends, is this increased search volume, is this engagement and shareables on social media - is it a bunch of different things? I’m curious what that looks like.


Lauren: This is actually beyond search volume. The limit that we have with search and even with social - actually, no, I’ll start with search - is that in order for it to garner volume, it has to be popular for a certain period of time. You’re limited to what has already created a level of surface for itself.


And with social, you have virality - but the moment you catch on, you’re already a little late. And if it’s just a moment of virality, it’s not necessarily something sustainable.


What I’m looking for in trends are: What are healthcare clinicians thinking? What are they dealing with in their documentation? What are we seeing in all of the forums that exist on the internet, and is that building a theme that I can start publishing content on?


Another one would be the term ambient listening - that started to increase in popularity. If I just look at Ahrefs, I’m going to see low volume. But now that I’m monitoring news cycles and these different platforms, I’m able to see that it’s increasing in interest. And then I’m able to connect with these emerging trends before I’m reliant on tools that just tell me volume.


So that was an incredible unlock for me. I was told by a much smarter person than myself that it’s 100 AI agents looking at all of these different trends, and we’re able to identify topics based on the questions that we know we want to ask.

So I just started using it - the hackathon was last week - but I’m so excited to dig in and see what it’ll tell me about the larger landscape.


Kyle: That is so cool. I might be bugging you afterwards just to give me like a five - minute view under the hood. I want to see what’s going on here.


Lauren: I know! I’m not trying to sell my own tool - I love healthcare - but I did think it was really awesome.


Kyle: That is very, very cool. Is there a way, whether it be with that tool or through some other kind of systems, that you measure specifics in terms of videos? You know, there could be a ten - minute - long video, but maybe there’s one minute of it that really stands out - or maybe it’s the whole thing. I don’t know. I’m curious where video stands in the whole thing.


(A cat meows in the background.)


Kyle: And I told you she should come say hi - there you go!


Lauren: Remind me of her name?


Kyle: Her name is Shade.


Lauren:  Hi, Shade! I love you!

Oh, she’s so sweet. I love that you asked about video. I’m actually doing my first foray into video starting with case studies and testimonials. So we’re using Riverside to record those videos. But really, this is a good question for my creative director - he’s the brilliant video mind behind the scenes.

But we’re realizing video more often than not should be where we start. If we can create the preliminary piece of content through video and then escalate it to these different types - these different formats - that’s the direction we’re heading in. Especially when you think about product education - we use Webflow, and Webflow itself has really incredible videos they use to walk through their product.

And I see that being what we do.


One, how can we put these specialists and brilliant clinicians at the forefront through video? Two, how can we walk through the product in a way that makes it consumable and as simple as possible - solving for that need, meeting clinicians where they are?


Kyle: To your point about the note - bloat, do you think clinicians would be more inclined to listen to something or watch something as opposed to have to read and write if they’re trying to educate themselves or learn something new?


Lauren: I think it depends on the content you’re creating for. But I absolutely do think there’s a time when they’d rather listen to something, and I want to be able to capture that content format properly based on whatever that need and interest is.


That’s something we’re playing around with right now. We’ve created a lot of video demos in our Help Center, and we hypothesize that’s going to be more useful than an article walkthrough. But sometimes folks are interested in a deeper dive, and in that world, having that foundational documentation adjacent with the video gives them whatever they’re looking for, regardless of format.


I do think, though, a clinician doesn’t have much time. And if they can just listen to something and get it quick, that tends to be useful. Many of the clinicians I’ve met are FaceTiming me from one meeting to going home or having an appointment. So if I’ve seen that in just meeting with them, I imagine their days are filled with very little time to engage with larger pieces of content.


Kyle: Throw it on at 1.5 speed and go for your walk or whatever it is and take in that content. That’s perfect.


Lauren: I do think that’s the play. If we can give it to them however they want it, I’m here to support that.


Kyle: Amazing. So I’m curious what the future of content from your perspective looks like with all these AI tools. There are a million pieces of content coming out all the time - some are obviously fake, some are authentic. What do you think is going to be happening in the next year to five years as more tools become available?


Lauren: I think that’s an excellent question. What we’ve already seen in the SEO and GEO lens is that if you just use AI, it’s not going to perform well. I think it was HubSpot that lost a significant amount of their traffic because they were likely publishing too many articles that didn’t have enough depth.


So when we talked about the E - E - A - T standards and how GEO works earlier, they’re not going to pull what’s already recycled. You need something new. And so that behooves us to build content that includes that extra level. I think we’ll see more partnerships with AI, with specialist intervention, with unique POVs, with product information that includes actual walkthroughs of the product.


I also think it means content is going to be moving up the line in the value chain. So it’s not just what the tool does, but what is the workflow? How is it going to reshape the practice, the larger experience for them? How can we engage in these real value - adds in what we build?


That’s what I see - the shift from what I’ve been creating historically to what we’re creating now: garnering authority that’s very deep, very strong in a niche use case, and showing how these things function and their larger impact for whoever the user might be.


Kyle: Got it. Got it. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Let’s get that deep, useful impact so that people can actually get some value out of it. That’s the good side of AI and helping you to understand really where to put your time and how to make it useful.


I think one of the recent trends that we’ve seen just in marketing in general - especially with AI, but particularly in healthcare - is personalization in content. I’m sure whether you guys are already doing it or experimenting with it, especially from the CRM perspective, right? With your follow - ups and different touchpoints.

So I’m curious if you can paint a picture of what Freed’s personalization tactics look like today - and how you navigate that from a HIPAA perspective. Because there’s always that extra level of a watchdog you have to be thinking about.


Lauren: I’m going to answer the HIPAA question first, and then if I forget the other one, remind me, please.

So - with HIPAA - you’re absolutely right. Security is fundamental. I can’t do anything if I’m not thinking about the safety and security of both the user and their patient.

Which is actually kind of nice, because what it requires is that we build this layer of trust from the very beginning. I can’t just take a screenshot of a chart and call it a day. I have to meet with these clinicians, discuss their experiences, and really understand what they’re comfortable showing.


That requires a call. It requires thirty minutes walking through their workflow just to get the small snippet they’re open to sharing. So it enables us to have this back - and - forth with users that’s become prolific.


And I think because of that, I’ve developed really strong connections with several users within our 20,000 - plus user base.


With that in mind, you have to think about specificity - what’s actually going to benefit the clinician.


An AI scribe can write a note, but each clinician in each specialty needs a different type of note. They have templates in their EHR - their electronic health record - that might be specific to their practice or the type of patient they’re seeing.


So you can end up with templatization across an entire three - person team using Freed.


And if I’m going to introduce them to the benefit of Freed, it’s my responsibility to understand the different ways they use it.


So getting to build case studies where I walk through their actual workflow - where I’m able to look at the templates that are important, where I understand the EHR they’re likely to use - that’s what helps us build better content.

We’re actually in the process right now of building out specialty - specific hubs that will host case studies, yes, but also workflow - specific content.


Things like: “Here are templates that are useful for your team.” “Here’s a typical workflow for a rural healthcare practice versus one for a solo practitioner.”

Creating that and housing it in one large hub has been something I’m really excited to embark on.


And in terms of distribution for that, we’re not just looking at SEO optimization. We’re looking at where clinicians already are - to provide value there.


Maybe that’s outbound, maybe that’s social, maybe it’s collaboration with other clinicians. The idea is: when someone eventually searches for us, they find this very strong hub waiting for them the moment they hit our site.


So, specificity - that’s absolutely the name of the game. It doesn’t benefit my users, or myself, to create a generic page that says, “This is an AI scribe, and it’s going to solve all your problems.”


Kyle: Yeah. “All your problems gone, one fell swoop.”


I think you touched on it a little bit, but I want to dig a bit deeper. So, where my head goes - let’s take Tesla, for example. It’s an automotive company, sure, but really it’s a data company, right? Collecting all kinds of information about how cars are driven, about roads, patterns, and behaviors.


I’m curious if future iterations of Freed could work that way - learning from how doctors use it, maybe patterns in the notes they take, things like that.


I know that gets a bit tricky with HIPAA and privacy, but I’m wondering: is there an opportunity to use some of that information to improve the product or your content?


Lauren: I want to make sure I’m answering it correctly - we’re talking about using data from our user base to maybe improve or evolve the product, right?


Kyle: Yes, exactly.


Lauren: Definitely. We do use user interaction data to improve the product. But this is not about patient data. That gets deleted.


Kyle: Okay, that’s kind of what I was thinking - you’re not using the patient data itself.


Lauren: Not at all. I want to be very clear, because people do ask that question. All patient information is deleted. Notes only exist for the individual account owner. Even within larger organizations, each clinician accesses their own information privately.


What we do look at is how clinicians are using Freed - what tools they’re using, which features they’re interacting with most, what systems they’re integrating with outside of Freed - and then we figure out: is that something we need to bring in-house?


That’s the data that impacts product development. For example, I mentioned pre-charting earlier - that’s the step before meeting the patient. We’re studying what that looks like and identifying where the friction points are.


Then, post - visit, we look at how they’re sending patient instructions - which we help automate.


We also analyze how they use different EHRs so we can improve integrations and reduce that back-and-forth switching.


That’s the kind of data we rely on - not patient data, but interaction data.

We’re not building doctors. We’re working with doctors - and we’re trying to make the administrative side stronger so they don’t have to do it all themselves.


Kyle: Great answer to my wildly roundabout question. It took me a while to get there. You handled it. Well done.


Lauren: Well done. I’m glad that I answered the question you asked.


Kyle: Amazing. Amazing. Well, great. This has been awesome. I have a handful of rapid-fire questions that I want to fire at you here while we get to the end.


I ask everybody: you can snap your fingers, you have a fully automated process or AI solution in place - what is that solution for you?


Lauren: Oh my gosh, I might already have it with the hackathon. I wanted something that would help predict for me. I wanted something that's going to tell me what's coming, and I have something that might help that. Tell me what I'm missing. So that would be my solution.


Kyle: Done, done. Amazing. Alright - what is harder, getting the perfect headline or the perfect visual asset?


Lauren: That’s a great question. I'd say the headline. I'm biased because I'm in content. Headlines can take forever because how do you distill this into something that's going to catch your attention?


They see the headline first.


Kyle: That's right. Gotta get that click-through rate. Alright - paint me a picture. It's crunch time for Lauren. Late night before a big deadline. You still have a bunch to do. What's it look like behind the scenes for you?


Lauren: I have a cup of coffee and I'm crying. I'm just kidding.


If I have a big deadline - let's say it's a larger piece, it's a larger content campaign - I am probably working with one of my teammates, and we are refining the copy to match whatever we want to have it do.


And we are sending it to my brilliant CMO, Val, and hoping she's awake even though she's in EST and I'm in PST.


Kyle: Oh, the big deadline. She better be up.


Lauren:  Come on, Val. I know, it's 3 a.m.


Kyle: What is your current random obsession that is coming up on your social media timeline today?


Lauren: Oh my gosh. I actually - I have to change what it is because I am a terrible, avid TikTok user. And one of the ones I’ve been obsessed with has been the musical Death Becomes Her. It’s popped up on my feed, and I think I’ve watched the entire thing.


Not useful at all to my actual marketing brain, but it’s been very fun.


Kyle: Everybody’s got the random things that come and go. So… last question - Beyoncé or Taylor Swift?


Lauren: Beyoncé, hands down.


Kyle: Alright, amazing. So I wanted to go open forum real quick - is there anything that you wanted to share that maybe we didn’t discuss that you’re passionate about or you’re excited for people to know?


Lauren: Oh, I love that. Yes.


I want to talk a bit about Freed and what it's been doing in general. I think that our unique relationship with clinicians has enabled us to really save time - and that’s in a tangible way.


And using that in marketing, getting those aggregated stats, is a big part of how we’ve been able to tell that story while being mindful of HIPAA and the data that we’re collecting.


So I wanted to make that point - but then I wanted to expand on what the clinician assistant is.


Right now, Freed is an AI scribe. It’s solving for that problem. But when we think about an assistant, we’re thinking about creating that right-hand man and really looking at the administrative process from beginning to end.


So, having identified that documentation is a really large part of it, that’s where we’ve doubled down. But I imagine a world where this assistant can evolve even beyond that.


And I’m so excited for what is coming in the next six months. But I imagine in the next few years, we might have a completely different tool than we’ve had before.

And that number one goal of that would be to be for clinicians.


Our CEO was actually married - his wife was in residency and she was charting every night - and that’s why he built this tool. It was so he could spend more time with his wife.


And yeah - that heart of us putting the clinician first is something you very rarely see in SaaS. And it’s been an absolute pleasure to work for something that is dedicated to making clinicians' lives better beyond our own success.


I think that we really put our money where our mouth is - when, if we can make clinicians' lives better, we will always make that choice beyond what might give us a small win for the company.


Kyle: That’s some beautiful background. I think that story alone is great content for you guys as well. I’m sure you lean into that in some capacity to say, like, “Hey, it was built specifically for this reason - and it works.” So you might as well highlight that.


Lauren: Definitely. We actually have an article we’re putting out about how we prioritize clinicians, and weaving it into the narrative - like, our whole value system is based on, “Is this going to benefit a clinician?”


And the question we’re told to ask ourselves before we make a choice is, “Is this going to benefit a clinician?”


So it’s great for content, but it’s also great for my own decision-making - especially when I’m up at 1 p.m. trying to get a deadline.


Kyle: Very, very cool. Well, expect me to be bothering you in the next six months to kind of hear what the updates are. Maybe we’ll have a round two going so you can share some of the cool stuff you guys are working on.


Lauren: I would love to. I could talk about this all day. And it’s been so nice getting to know you, Kyle.


Kyle: Amazing. Well, Lauren, I really appreciate you joining. People can find you on LinkedIn. Do you have any other accounts or websites you want to plug or anything like that?


Lauren: Definitely check out Freed at getfreed.ai. I would love for you just to learn about us and see what we’ve been building.


And on LinkedIn, yes - I’m Lauren Funaro, and I’m more than happy to just chat with other content marketers or folks interested in entering the industry.


I’ve learned from so many prolific, brilliant marketers, and I would love to share anything I know with someone who wants to chat.


Kyle: Very cool. Yes - Lauren, Content Marketing Manager at Freed. Check them out - getfreed.ai.


Thank you so much for joining. This was a great conversation. I love marketing - I like to nerd out on this kind of stuff - so I appreciate all of your insights and for joining The Brainiac Blueprint.


Lauren, if you wouldn’t mind, do me a favor: look into the camera and say, “Stay brilliant, Brainiacs.”


Lauren: Stay brilliant, Brainiacs.


Kyle: Awesome. Thank you so much.


Lauren: Thank you so much, Kyle. Bye!


Kyle: Cheers

 
 
 

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