This interview is with Jamie Frew, CEO at Carepatron.

Jamie Frew, CEO, Carepatron

Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your role in the healthcare technology sector?

I’m Jamie Frew, co-founder of Carepatron, which is a practice management platform designed to pretty much make life easier for clinicians, therapists, and care teams. We take the hassle out of admin, help teams stay connected, and give people back time so they can focus on delivering great care. I co-founded Carepatron with David Pene back in 2021. When we started Carepatron, we saw that a lot of healthcare processes and systems were clunky and complicated. We wanted to build something that actually works the way healthcare professionals do; something simple, intuitive, and genuinely helpful. If I’m being honest, we did a lot of pivoting during our initial stages because sometimes, even when you think you know the problem you want to solve, your target audience may spell out reality differently. Carepatron was a result of many trials and errors, as well as collaborations with people whose life and work we actually want to make a difference in.

What inspired you to pursue a career at the intersection of healthcare and technology, and how has your journey led you to where you are today?

What drew me to healthcare and technology was seeing how much time and energy were being wasted on systems that didn’t serve the people using them. I’ve always been interested in solving real-world problems, and healthcare is one of the most complex, high-stakes areas where the right tools can make a real difference.

Before Carepatron, I worked across a few different product and startup roles, and I kept coming back to the same frustration. Software in healthcare was stuck. It wasn’t designed for the people on the ground. It was either built for large hospital systems or forced clinicians into rigid workflows that didn’t reflect how they actually worked.

That gap is what motivated me and David to start Carepatron. We wanted to build something better: a platform that feels more human, more intuitive, and that gives time back to clinicians. From the beginning, we’ve built Carepatron with our community, listening closely and making sure every feature is solving a real problem.

The journey has had its challenges, but it’s been incredibly rewarding. Every time we hear that someone is running a smoother practice or spending more time with their clients because of Carepatron, it reminds us why we started in the first place.

Based on your experience with Carepatron, how are AI and automation transforming the day-to-day operations of healthcare professionals?

One of the biggest things we focus on at Carepatron is making sure AI and automation are about empowerment, not replacement. That’s been a key part of our thinking from the start. Based on what we’ve seen, AI is already starting to transform how healthcare professionals manage their day-to-day work. The biggest shift is in reducing the time spent on repetitive admin tasks like writing notes, managing bookings, and handling forms. These things matter, but they pull focus away from where clinicians really want to be, which is working with their clients.

That’s why we’ve built AI tools that help generate clinical notes, summarize sessions, and streamline workflows. We’re not trying to replace the clinician but are rather giving them better tools so they can focus more on providing better substance, better engagement, and better care in their practice.

To me, the real opportunity with AI is creating a quiet, invisible assistant. It works in the background, adapts to the way you work, and lifts the load without getting in the way. If we do this right, AI won’t make healthcare less human. It will actually give professionals the space and energy to make it more so.

Can you share a specific example of how interoperability has improved patient care, and what challenges still remain in this area?

Definitely. One example that stands out is how interoperability has helped mental health teams collaborate more effectively across different services. We’ve worked with practices where a client might be seeing a GP, a psychologist, and a social worker across different organizations, and in the past, each of those providers had their own system, making communication fragmented at best. By connecting systems through secure sharing and synced health records, we’ve seen teams move from working in silos to actually collaborating in real time. Carepatron helps practices securely share progress notes, treatment plans, and client updates with the right permissions in place. That means less double-handling, fewer missed details, and faster, more coordinated care for the client.

But there are still big challenges. Interoperability sounds simple, but in practice, it’s messy. A lot of systems don’t speak the same language, and even when they do, privacy, compliance, and data ownership become complex really quickly. Many healthcare providers are still using legacy software that makes integration painful or even impossible.

The future is about creating more open, flexible systems that prioritize both security and ease of use. We need to keep pushing for standards that make sharing safer and smarter, without creating more work for clinicians. When done right, interoperability not only makes things efficient and effective; it can also make care a lot more accessible and possible.

How do you see the balance between tech-enabled care and the human touch in healthcare evolving, particularly in mental health services?

Mental health has always been a core focus for us at Carepatron, both in terms of supporting patients and looking after the well-being of healthcare providers themselves. We’ve seen firsthand how stretched mental health professionals can be, and how the right tools can make a real difference in their ability to show up for their clients and for themselves.

On the patient side, we’ve built features that make mental health support more accessible, more personal, and more efficient. Things like AI-generated progress notes, customizable care plans, and telehealth tools help therapists spend less time on admin and more time in meaningful sessions. We also focus a lot on creating a calming, intuitive experience for both clients and clinicians. The platform is designed to reduce friction, not add to it.

But supporting providers is just as important. Mental health work is emotionally demanding. Burnout is real, and we take that seriously. That’s why we’ve built in automation that removes repetitive tasks, scheduling tools that actually work, and secure messaging to make communication simple. The goal is to create a system that feels like a partner in your workflow, not another job to manage.

We’ve also spent a lot of time talking to mental health professionals to make sure we’re solving the right problems. The feedback has been clear: What they need is support that fits the way they already work, not more complexity. That’s what we’re building—a platform that respects the work they do, helps them stay focused, and supports better outcomes for everyone involved.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

You can connect with me, Jamie Frew, on LinkedIn and support our mission for accessible, affordable, and global healthcare by checking out Carepatron.