California B2B medical care concept enters Houston market with HP Inc. already signed on as a client

One-stop shop

Paying a per-employee fee, companies can give their team access to a one-stop-shop approach to medical care with Crossover. Courtesy of Crossover

Information technology provider HP Inc. and other major employers in the Houston area are exploring a new way to offer medical care to their employees.

A California company called Crossover Health just opened a 5,300-square-foot medical clinic in Spring. The clinic — Crossover Health's first in the Houston area — enables several self-insured employers to share one provider of primary healthcare services for their employees in an effort to cut costs and promote convenience.

Aside from primary medical care, offerings at the Spring clinic include physical therapy, and chiropractic, acupuncture, and fitness services. Each employer pays a monthly per-employee fee for access to Crossover Health.

At the Spring center, Crossover Health seeks to act on its "belief that healthcare should be convenient, simple to navigate, affordable, and personalized."

The Spring location, at 28420 Hardy Toll Road, features four rooms for primary care, and two each for physical therapy, acupuncture, and health coaching. At the outset, the clinic employs 13 people, but more hires are planned as Crossover Health adds clients there.

Palo Alto, California-based HP is the only client of the Spring clinic that Crossover Health is permitted to identify. In February, HP moved about 2,400 employees into its new two-building, 12-acre campus at Springwoods Village, a master-planned community just west of the Crossover Health clinic. Later this year, San Jose, California-based Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., a sister company of HP, is scheduled to kick off construction of a new campus at Springwoods Village.

Neighboring employers include ExxonMobil, Southwestern Energy, and the American Bureau of Shipping.

For employers, Crossover Health operates medical clinics that are at or near worksites. Outside the Houston area, Crossover Health's corporate clients include Apple, LinkedIn, and Visa.

Larry Boress, executive director of the Dallas-based National Association of Worksite Health Centers, says clinics like Crossover Health's can reduce travel time for employees heading to medical appointments and, as a result, can improve productivity.

"The value of a worksite health and wellness center for both large and small employers in Houston is that it offers the ability to gain real value on their healthcare investment," Boress says.

Aside from trimming healthcare costs, such centers can boost employee satisfaction and decrease absenteeism, he says.

"These centers have also been found to help employers be an employer of choice, benefiting recruitment and retention of employees," Boress says.

A 2018 survey by consulting firm Mercer and the National Association of Worksite Health Centers found that in 2017, one-third of U.S. employers with at least 5,000 employees provided worksite medical clinics, up from almost one-fourth in 2012.

A different survey — this one conducted in 2018 by the National Association of Worksite Health Centers and Benfield, a market research, strategy, and communications consulting firm that focuses on the healthcare industry — showed that among large employers with some sort of medical arrangement, 63 percent offered on-site clinics, 16 percent offered nearby clinics, and 21 percent offered a mix of the two.

"The hope with on-site or near-site clinics is to make healthcare more convenient for employees, and along the way ideally cheaper by cutting down on visits," Business Insider reported in 2018. "Crossover says it can save as much as $970 per member compared to what employers would be paying if that employee went through the traditional healthcare system. That savings can add up for a company with thousands of employees."

Crossover Health already has brought its brand of healthcare delivery to Austin and San Antonio. Now that the company has planted its flag in the Houston market, it's eyeing its first location in Dallas-Fort Worth.

"Texas, which has consistently ranked as the top U.S. state for business and job growth, is one of our most important markets as we continue to expand our national footprint," Dr. Scott Shreeve, co-founder and CEO of Crossover Health, says in a release. "The new Spring center allows us to introduce our new model of primary care to an increasing number of corporations moving to the Lone Star State."


features four rooms for primary care, and two each for physical therapy, acupuncture, and health coaching.Courtesy of Crossover Health

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Houston researchers develop material to boost AI speed and cut energy use

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A team of researchers at the University of Houston has developed an innovative thin-film material that they believe will make AI devices faster and more energy efficient.

AI data centers consume massive amounts of electricity and use large cooling systems to operate, adding a strain on overall energy consumption.

“AI has made our energy needs explode,” Alamgir Karim, Dow Chair and Welch Foundation Professor at the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UH, explained in a news release. “Many AI data centers employ vast cooling systems that consume large amounts of electricity to keep the thousands of servers with integrated circuit chips running optimally at low temperatures to maintain high data processing speed, have shorter response time and extend chip lifetime.”

In a report recently published in ACS Nano, Karim and a team of researchers introduced a specialized two-dimensional thin film dielectric, or electric insulator. The film, which does not store electricity, could be used to replace traditional, heat-generating components in integrated circuit chips, which are essential hardware powering AI.

The thinner film material aims to reduce the significant energy cost and heat produced by the high-performance computing necessary for AI.

Karim and his former doctoral student, Maninderjeet Singh, used Nobel prize-winning organic framework materials to develop the film. Singh, now a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University, developed the materials during his doctoral training at UH, along with Devin Shaffer, a UH professor of civil engineering, and doctoral student Erin Schroeder.

Their study shows that dielectrics with high permittivity (high-k) store more electrical energy and dissipate more energy as heat than those with low-k materials. Karim focused on low-k materials made from light elements, like carbon, that would allow chips to run cooler and faster.

The team then created new materials with carbon and other light elements, forming covalently bonded sheetlike films with highly porous crystalline structures using a process known as synthetic interfacial polymerization. Then they studied their electronic properties and applications in devices.

According to the report, the film was suitable for high-voltage, high-power devices while maintaining thermal stability at elevated operating temperatures.

“These next-generation materials are expected to boost the performance of AI and conventional electronics devices significantly,” Singh added in the release.

Houston to become 'global leader in brain health' and more innovation news

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Editor's note: The most-read Houston innovation news this month is centered around brain health, from the launch of Project Metis to Rice''s new Amyloid Mechanism and Disease Center. Here are the five most popular InnovationMap stories from December 1-15, 2025:

1. Houston institutions launch Project Metis to position region as global leader in brain health

The Rice Brain Institute, UTMB's Moody Brain Health Institute and Memorial Hermann’s comprehensive neurology care department will lead Project Metis. Photo via Unsplash.

Leaders in Houston's health care and innovation sectors have joined the Center for Houston’s Future to launch an initiative that aims to make the Greater Houston Area "the global leader of brain health." The multi-year Project Metis, named after the Greek goddess of wisdom and deep thought, will be led by the newly formed Rice Brain Institute, The University of Texas Medical Branch's Moody Brain Health Institute and Memorial Hermann’s comprehensive neurology care department. The initiative comes on the heels of Texas voters overwhelmingly approving a ballot measure to launch the $3 billion, state-funded Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (DPRIT). Continue reading.

2.Rice University researchers unveil new model that could sharpen MRI scans

New findings from a team of Rice University researchers could enhance MRI clarity. Photo via Unsplash.

Researchers at Rice University, in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have developed a new model that could lead to sharper imaging and safer diagnostics using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI. In a study published in The Journal of Chemical Physics, the team of researchers showed how they used the Fokker-Planck equation to better understand how water molecules respond to contrast agents in a process known as “relaxation.” Continue reading.

3. Rice University launches new center to study roots of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s

The new Amyloid Mechanism and Disease Center will serve as the neuroscience branch of Rice’s Brain Institute. Photo via Unsplash.

Rice University has launched its new Amyloid Mechanism and Disease Center, which aims to uncover the molecular origins of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other amyloid-related diseases. The center will bring together Rice faculty in chemistry, biophysics, cell biology and biochemistry to study how protein aggregates called amyloids form, spread and harm brain cells. It will serve as the neuroscience branch of the Rice Brain Institute, which was also recently established. Continue reading.

4. Baylor center receives $10M NIH grant to continue rare disease research

BCM's Center for Precision Medicine Models has received funding that will allow it to study more complex diseases. Photo via Getty Images

Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Precision Medicine Models has received a $10 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health that will allow it to continue its work studying rare genetic diseases. The Center for Precision Medicine Models creates customized cell, fly and mouse models that mimic specific genetic variations found in patients, helping scientists to better understand how genetic changes cause disease and explore potential treatments. Continue reading.

5. Luxury transportation startup connects Houston with Austin and San Antonio

Shutto is a new option for Houston commuters. Photo courtesy of Shutto

Houston business and leisure travelers have a luxe new way to hop between Texas cities. Transportation startup Shutto has launched luxury van service connecting San Antonio, Austin, and Houston, offering travelers a comfortable alternative to flying or long-haul rideshare. Continue reading.

Texas falls to bottom of national list for AI-related job openings

jobs report

For all the hoopla over AI in the American workforce, Texas’ share of AI-related job openings falls short of every state except Pennsylvania and Florida.

A study by Unit4, a provider of cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for businesses, puts Texas at No. 49 among the states with the highest share of AI-focused jobs. Just 9.39 percent of Texas job postings examined by Unit4 mentioned AI.

Behind Texas are No. 49 Pennsylvania (9.24 percent of jobs related to AI) and No. 50 Florida (9.04 percent). One spot ahead of Texas, at No. 47, is California (9.56 percent).

Unit4 notes that Texas’ and Florida’s low rankings show “AI hiring concentration isn’t necessarily tied to population size or GDP.”

“For years, California, Texas, and New York dominated tech hiring, but that’s changing fast. High living costs, remote work culture, and the democratization of AI tools mean smaller states can now compete,” Unit4 spokesperson Mark Baars said in a release.

The No. 1 state is Wyoming, where 20.38 percent of job openings were related to AI. The Cowboy State was followed by Vermont at No. 2 (20.34 percent) and Rhode Island at No. 3 (19.74 percent).

“A company in Wyoming can hire an AI engineer from anywhere, and startups in Vermont can build powerful AI systems without being based in Silicon Valley,” Baars added.

The study analyzed LinkedIn job postings across all 50 states to determine which ones were leading in AI employment. Unit4 came up with percentages by dividing the total number of job postings in a state by the total number of AI-related job postings.

Experts suggest that while states like Texas, California and Florida “have a vast number of total job postings, the sheer volume of non-AI jobs dilutes their AI concentration ratio,” according to Unit4. “Moreover, many major tech firms headquartered in California are outsourcing AI roles to smaller, more affordable markets, creating a redistribution of AI employment opportunities.”

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