Houston startup connects the dots between contract nurses and medical facilities

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Houston-based NurseDash is the Uber of staffing nursing shifts in medical facilities. Photo via nursedash.com

It's no secret that there's a shortage of nurses nationwide — and in Houston, the situation is no different. As baby boomers reach old age, the need for healthcare is only becoming more dire. Most facilities see a turnover rate of between 30 and 180 percent among nurses, leaving jobs open and shifts in need of being covered. Ideal staffing is a 5:1 patient-to-nurse ratio, but many sites are getting by with more like 8:1.

The solution for most healthcare facilities, whether they're hospitals, doctors offices or nursing homes, is to contact agencies to fill those spots. But agencies charge a high percentage for placement and lack transparency, says Andy Chen, former CFO for Nobilis Health Corporation. That's why he and Jakob Kohl created their app, NurseDash.

"Historically, some local agencies will promise you that they'll have somebody for you at 7 a.m. tomorrow, then start calling their people. They promise they'll send somebody, but they don't even know who it is," says Chen.

"The other thing is [facilities] would typically call multiple agencies so you're kind of on the hook with first-come-first-serve basis. And they were incentivized to say, 'Yes I've got somebody for you,' then find the person rather than finding the right candidate for that particular shift," adds Kohl, a principal at Everwise Healthcare and an attorney.

The two men were convinced that they could do better. They wanted to make sure that high-quality, accredited nurses could match with the medical sites where they were the perfect fit, for shifts that worked for both of them. NurseDash is the platform that makes the idea a reality.

NurseDash launched in 2017 and is the product of Belgian designers and developers in Russia. The project manager for the app is in New York, but official headquarters in Houston's Galleria area, where a staff of five works with the team spread out around the world.

Since its debut, NurseDash has attracted 40 facilities in Houston, including hospitals, surgery centers, and senior living, and about 400 nurses. Chen says he isn't sure just what to call his technology yet, but compares it to the ride hailing of Uber or Lyft and calls it "a virtual bulletin board."

The healthcare site posts shifts that it needs to fill. Nurses who fit the requirements see the availability and can choose what suits their schedules, then apply within the app. Everything takes place within the app, including payment and asking questions about the job. Nurses have already been vetted before they're able to apply, with comprehensive credentialing including license checks and drug screenings. The percentage that NurseDash takes from the transaction is about 30 percent less than an agency would take, says Kohl.

It's clear why medical facilities need such a service, but how does it benefit the nurses? It depends on where they are in their careers. Experienced nurses can pick up extra shifts on top of their full-time jobs, if they so desire. Practitioners returning to the game after having children can find times that work with their busy schedules. And fledgling nurses can use the opportunities to get a foot in the door at hospitals where they'd like to work full-time someday.

"They can work on their schedule, on their terms," says Kohl.

NurseDash has already expanded beyond Houston to northeast Ohio, which the founders say has a similar competitive dynamic to the Houston market. The next goal is to hit the rest of the top 10 largest cities in the United States. The next markets, says Kohl, will roll out at the request of major hospitals with locations both in Houston and those other cities. Ultimately, the goal is to become the go-to marketplace for nurses across the country. One shift at a time, NurseDash is making healthcare better.

Patients about to undergo brain surgery can use VR to see what their surgeon is about to do to their brain. Courtesy of Methodist

5 new technologies enhancing health care at Houston Methodist

game changers

While hospital systems might have a reputation for being slow adaptors to new technologies, Houston Methodist is single-handedly trying to change that theory. From artificial intelligence to virtual reality, the hospital system is making big moves innovating and introducing cutting edge tools and systems.

Houston Methodist's Center for Innovation, which has really developed in the past few months, is lead by Roberta Schwartz — executive vice president, chief innovation officer, and chief executive officer of Houston Methodist Hospital. She says Methodist has always lead the way within health care innovation in Houston.

"I think we're an industry that is transforming itself. We're either going to be disrupted or we're going to do the disruption ourselves," Schwartz tells InnovationMap in a previous interview. "There's nobody who knows health care better than we do, so if we're going to transform the industry, I want that transformation to come from the inside."

Here are five different new programs the hospital has introduced to enhance patient care.

An automated recruiting tool named Mia

Photo via houstonmethodistcareers.org

Hospital recruiting has always posed a problem for a few reasons, but one challenge has been the lack of HR resources available at all hours of the day or night. To help rectify this issue, Methodist has introduced Mia, a 24/7 chatbot that can answer HR questions from potential applicants.

"We find that we are communicating with night nurses at 1 am asking about benefits," Schwartz says. A lot of the people we are trying to recruit are working at night when we don't have HR staff in the office all night long."

Methodist is one of five in the country to launch the recruiting chatbot. The initial pilot is focused on recruiting medical surgical nurses and medical assistants. In just four months, Mia has chatted with over 800 prospective employees resulting in over 20 hires.

Pre- and post-op automated information

Photo via caresense.com

A crucial time for patients is immediately before and after surgeries or procedures, but doctors and medical staff usually has the most trouble keeping track of patients during these times.

CareSense automated program offers reminders and monitoring questions that better connects the patients with the hospital. In the three months the pilot has been running, nearly 500 Houston Methodist surgical patients reported extremely high satisfaction and over 75 percent of patients are engaged with the program.

Currently, CareSense works with Houston Methodist patients undergoing certain total joint replacement, colorectal, spine, and cardiac procedures. The technology can send texts, emails, website, and video links before and after the procedure. Early data has seen a reduction in missed appointments, lower surgical cancellations, and increased patient compliance. Up next is an expansion into various clinical areas, including mental health, interventional radiology, and oncology.

Virtual reality technology for brain surgeries

Patients about to undergo brain surgery can use VR to see what their surgeon is about to do to their brain. Courtesy of Methodist

Houston Methodist Hospital is channeling a Magic School Bus episode with new VR technology that allows neurosurgical patients and their family members to essentially walk through their brains ahead of their surgeries.

The patient wears a virtual reality headset and gets a 360 degree view of their brain, and the neurosurgeon can walk the patient through the surgery process. According to a release from Houston Methodist, the technology is the first of its kind that combines fighter jet flight simulation with patients' anatomy scans from MRI, CT, and/or DTI processes to make a 3D model.

Virtual urgent care

Screenshot via App Store

Houston Methodist recently went mobile, Schwartz says. About 77 percent of patients are interested in virtual access to physicians, according to the Advisory Board's 2017 Virtual Visits Consumer Choice Survey that included over 5,000 patients across the country — and 19 percent of patients have already engaged with doctors virtually.

"We live in a technology-driven age where people want easy access to services and they are open to seeing a provider via video. With virtual urgent care, a patient can get help for minor illnesses from the comfort of their own home," says Schwartz in a release.

The new MyMethodist app provides a platform for patients to contact doctors virtually, as well as medical records, test results, bill payments, prescription services and more. Some of the conditions included in virtual treatment are cold/flu symptoms, pink eye, skin infections/rash, allergies, cough/fever/headache, and upper respiratory infections.

Scheduling tool partnership with Next Level Urgent Care and Blockit

Photo via nextlevelurgentcare.com

In an emergency situation, a patient might opt for an urgent care center over a hospital visit. Houston Methodist wants to connect the dots in that case in order to best serve its patients. A partnership between Blockit, Next Level Urgent Care, and Methodist has emerged to allow for easier access to follow-up appointments with orthopedic specialty physicians, and an urgent care patient might leave the facility with his or her follow-up visit already scheduled. In the pilot program's first five months into this pilot, over 120 urgent care patients engaged with the program and made follow up appointments from the facility.


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Rice scientist earns $600K NSF award to study distractions in digital age

fresh funding

Rice University psychologist Kirsten Adam has received a $600,000 National Science Foundation CAREER Award to research how visual distractions like phone notifications, flashing alerts, crowded screens and busy workspaces can negatively impact focus—and how the brain works to try to regain it.

The highly competitive five-year NSF grants are given to career faculty members with the potential to serve as academic models and leaders in research and education. Adam’s work will aim to clarify how the brain refocuses in the age of screens, instant gratification and other lingering distractions. The funding will also be used to train graduate students in advanced cognitive neuroscience methods, expand access to electroencephalography (EEG) and for public data sharing.

“Kirsten is a valued member of the School of Social Sciences, and we are thrilled that she has been awarded the prestigious NSF CAREER,” Rachel Kimbro, dean of social sciences, said in a news release. “Because distractions continue to increase all around us, her research is timely and imperative to understanding their widespread impacts on the human brain.”

In Adam’s lab, participants complete simplified visual search tasks while their brain activity is recorded using EEG, allowing researchers to measure attention shifts in real time. This process then captures the moment attention is drawn from a goal and how much effort it takes to refocus.

According to Rice, Adam’s work will test long-standing theories about distraction. The research is meant to have real-world implications for jobs and aspects of everyday life where attention to detail is key, including medical imaging, airport security screening and even driving.

“At any given moment, there’s far more information in the world than our brains can process,” Adam added in the release. “Attention is what determines what reaches our awareness and what doesn’t.”

Additionally, the research could inform the design of new technologies that would support focus and decision-making, according to Rice.

“We’re not trying to make attention limitless,” Adam added. “We’re trying to understand how it actually works, so we can stop designing environments and expectations that fight against it.”

12 Houston climatetech startups join Greentown Labs' growing incubator

Startup Talk

More than 40 climatetech startups joined the Greentown Labs Houston community in the second half of 2025, 12 of which hail from the Bayou City.

The companies are among a group of nearly 70 total that joined the climatetech incubator, which is co-located in Houston and Boston, in Q3 and Q4.

The new companies that have joined the Houston incubator specialize in a variety of clean energy applications, from green hydrogen-producing water-splitting cycles to drones that service wind turbines.

The local startups that joined Greentown Houston include:

  • Houston-based Wise Energie, which delivers turnkey microgrids that blend vertical-axis wind, solar PV, and battery storage into a single, silent system.
  • The Woodlands-based Resollant, which is developing compact, zero-emissions hydrogen and carbon reactors to provide low-cost, scalable clean hydrogen and high-purity carbon for the energy and manufacturing sectors.
  • Houston-based ClarityCastle, which designs and manufactures modular, soundproof work pods that replace traditional drywall construction with reusable, low-waste alternatives made from recycled materials.
  • Houston-based WattSto Energy, which manufactures vanadium redox flow batteries to deliver long-duration storage for both grid-scale projects and off-grid microgrids.
  • Houston-based AMPeers, which delivers advanced, high-temperature superconductors in the U.S. at a fraction of traditional costs.
  • Houston-based Biosimo, which is developing bio-based platform chemicals, pioneering sustainable chemistry for a healthier planet and economy.
  • Houston-based Ententia, which offers purpose-built, generative AI for industry.
  • Houston-based GeoKiln Energy Innovation, which is developing a new way to produce clean hydrogen by accelerating natural geologic reactions in iron-rich rock formations using precision electrical heating.
  • Houston-based Timbergrove, which builds AI and IoT solutions that connect and optimize assets—boosting visibility, safety, and efficiency.
  • Houston-based dataVediK, which combines energy-domain expertise with advanced machine learning and intelligent automation to empower organizations to achieve operational excellence and accelerate their sustainability goals.
  • Houston-based Resonant Thermal Systems, which uses a resonant energy-transfer (RET) system to extract critical minerals from industrial and natural brines without using membranes or grid electricity.
  • Houston-based Torres Orbital Mining (TOM),which develops autonomous excavation systems for extreme environments on Earth and the moon, enabling safe, data-driven resource recovery and laying the groundwork for sustainable off-world industry.

Other startups from around the world joined the Houston incubator in the same time period, including:

More than 100 startups joined Greentown this year, according to an end-of-year reflection shared by Greentown CEO Georgina Campbell Flatter.

Flatter joined Greentown in the top leadership role in February 2025. She succeeded former CEO and president Kevin Knobloch, who stepped down in July 2024.

"I moved back to the United States in March 2025 after six years overseas—2,000 miles, three children, and one very patient husband later. Over these months, I’ve had the chance to hear from the entrepreneurs, industry leaders, investors, and partners who make this community thrive. What I’ve experienced has left me brimming with urgent optimism for the future we’re building together," she said in the release.

According to Flatter, Greentown alumni raised more than $2 billion this year and created more than 3,000 jobs.

"Greentown startups and ecosystem leaders—from Boston, Houston, and beyond—are showing that we can move further and faster together. That we don’t have to choose between more energy or lower emissions, or between increasing sustainability and boosting profit. I call this the power of 'and,'" Flatter added. "We’re working for energy and climate, innovation and scale, legacy industry and startups, prosperity for people and planet. The 'and' is where possibility expands."

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCaptialHTX.com.

Intuitive Machines forms partnership with Italian companies for lunar exploration services

to the moon

Houston-based space technology, infrastructure and services company Intuitive Machines has forged a partnership with two Italian companies to offer infrastructure, communication and navigation services for exploration of the moon.

Intuitive Machines’ agreement with the two companies, Leonardo and Telespazio, paves the way for collaboration on satellite services for NASA, a customer of Intuitive Machines, and the European Space Agency, a customer of Leonardo and Telespazio. Leonardo, an aerospace, defense and security company, is the majority owner of Telespazio, a provider of satellite technology and services.

“Resilient, secure, and scalable space infrastructure and space data networks are vital to customers who want to push farther on the lunar surface and beyond to Mars,” Steve Altemus, co-founder and CEO of Intuitive Machine, said in a news release.

Massimo Claudio Comparini, managing director of Leonardo’s space division, added that the partnership with Intuitive Machines is a big step toward enabling human and robotic missions from the U.S., Europe and other places “to access a robust communications network and high-precision navigation services while operating in the lunar environment.”

Intuitive Machines recently expanded its Houston Spaceport facilities to ramp up in-house production of satellites. The company’s first satellite will launch with its upcoming IM‑3 lunar mission.

Intuitive Machines says it ultimately wants to establish a “center of space excellence” at Houston Spaceport to support missions to the moon, Mars and the region between Earth and the moon.

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