2 Houston hospitals honored among America's best in prestigious report

What the Doctor Ordered

Houston Methodist Hospital once again lands on U.S. News & World Report's "Honor Roll." Courtesy of Methodist Hospital/Facebook

Houston's Medical Center is often described as the epicenter of innovation and treatment in the U.S. — as well as the site of Nobel Prize-winning work. Now, a new report offers more bragging rights for the beloved center, as two of its hospitals have landed on a coveted list of the best facilities in the nation.

U.S. News & World Report has released its 2019-2020 list of best hospitals, citing Houston Methodist Hospital and The Menninger Clinic among the top in America.

The publication named Houston Methodist Hospital to its Honor Roll, a list of the top 20 hospitals in the country. Methodist tied for No. 20 with Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, Mayo Clinic-Phoenix, and Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian in Philadelphia.

To determine the Honor Roll, U.S. News ranks hospital performance in 16 areas of complex specialty care and rates hospitals in nine bellwether procedures and conditions, such as heart bypass, hip and knee replacement, heart failure, and lung cancer surgery, the publication notes.

This is the third time Methodist has secured the Honor Roll and the eighth year in a row it has been named the No. 1 hospital in Texas. Methodist also ranked No. 1 in the Gulf Coast region and was awarded national rankings in nine adult specialties and recognized as "high performing" for nine adult procedures and conditions.

Meanwhile, in the nationwide survey, The Menninger Clinic ranked No. 5 overall among Best Hospitals for Psychiatry. The institution, which offers treatment services for psychiatric disorders and substance abuse issues, has been ranked by U.S. News for 30 consecutive years, according to a release.

The report distinguishes the best hospitals for patients experiencing difficult-to-treat psychiatric disorders and is based on survey responses from 2017 to 2019 from physicians nationwide who are board certified in psychiatry, according to the publication.

During the three-year survey period, Menninger treated patients from all 50 states and 18 countries through five specialty inpatient programs, says a release. The hospital assists patients ranging from adolescents to adult professionals and hosts a popular annual luncheon featuring a celebrity keynote speaker who has dealt with mental wellness issues.

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This story originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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Myra Davis is responsible for Texas Children's Hospital's technology and innovation — two completely separate things, she says. Courtesy of TCH

Texas Children's exec to help transform the hospital's approach to innovation

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A few months ago, Myra Davis got a whole other slew of responsibilities with the addition of just one word to her title: Innovation. The senior vice president and chief information and innovation officer of Texas Children's Hospital oversees a team of individuals not only focused on bringing in new technologies and ideas — but maintaining those processes.

Currently, the hospital is in a transition phase looking to better represent its ongoing innovation, as well as bring in new aspects of innovation. Along with Paola Álvarez-Malo, assistant vice president of strategic and business planning at TCH, Davis is looking to keep TCH at the forefront of hospital innovation and pediatric care.

Davis sat down with InnovationMap to discuss the hospital's transformation process and how, while the work together, technoogy and innovation bring two different things to the table.

InnovationMap: What has been your initial focus since assuming the “innovation” part of your title a few months ago?

Myra Davis: When I was appointed, I stepped back and asked myself how we can go about doing this. I knew it was more than the need for technology. We needed to begin to leverage data and a resource that can be agnostic to the organization to help drive strategy.

IM: Why is being both the innovation officer and the information officer important?

MD: Typically, an innovation officer would pass off a new technology to the information officer and hope that they keep it up. Innovation is more than technology. It's about change, and advocating for change in practices, how we hire, how we look at outcomes, and how we look at data. Innovation is radical disruption of how we do things today. It's a full-time job, and then it backs up into including startups and new companies.

IM: Where are you in the transition process?

MD: We're in a discovery phase, which is almost complete. It will drive an outcome of what the structure should look like for an organization of our size and magnitude, and what additional resources we need to have. For example, today to make an appointment, you need to call and make an appointment at the front desk. But we should be disrupting that process and leverage technology. We should have goals of decreasing calls moving forward. We don't yet have the structure to bring those ideas to the table, but that's where I see it going.

IM: How have you seen innovation become a bigger player in health care?

MD: Health care is always a service organization. We're here to serve patients and help them get better. I think clinically, there's always been a need to stay innovative because it's medicine. Now, we're seeing the need to infuse the behaviors of innovative thinking and acting in our operating models to meet the health care model of service. What I mean by that is the cost of care. The models must change because reimbursements are changing, populations are changing, the demand of patients have changed. When I started, we never had patients not wanting to come in for care. Now, patients are saying they don't want to come in because it costs too much. While there's been a plethora of technologies — we have a host of technology systems — but we're realizing we've only scratched the surface with the opportunities we have.

I often talk about the little "i" versus the big "i" in the word "innovation." The little "i" is leveraging what you have already — that's an innovative game changer. Then there's the big "i" and that's the commercialization of a product or partnering with a startup company and they go public. When we say innovation, most people think of that big "i" but it's a spectrum.

IM: What’s the big technology you see disrupting the health care industry?

MD: I think it's data science. It's a major breakthrough. For prescriptive, predictive, and descriptive reasons, we can't afford to keep doing things ourselves. The market is getting competitive, and we must get to decision making faster. You got to go with the data. You can't be so precise it keeps you from being creative, but you have to start with knowledge.

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Portions of this interview have been edited.

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UH scores $18M NIH grant for chronic disease research

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The University of Houston has received a coveted $18.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to launch a program to address the root causes of chronic disease.

Only 22 institutions nationwide receive this NIH award, and the 5-year process aligns with the newly established UH Health’s mission to expand healthcare innovations in Texas and beyond. The initiative will be housed in the UH Population Health department.

"This generous funding allows us to directly confront the root causes of chronic illness that place a heavy burden on so many families," Dr. Jonathan McCullers, vice president for health affairs at UH, said in a news release. "With the recent launch of UH Health, we have an unprecedented opportunity to translate scientific discovery into healthier outcomes for our communities by bringing together experts from across the university to improve health where it matters most.”

Through the program, UH researchers from different areas of expertise will work together to address the challenges of chronic illness by looking at biological, social and behavioral factors.

According to the university, chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, strokes and others are the leading cause of illness, disability and death in the U.S. They account for 90 percent of the nation’s $5.3 trillion in annual healthcare spending.

Bettina Beech, chief of population health and translational science at UH, serves as principal investigator for the program.

“Chronic disease management largely happens during the 8,700 hours each year that people are not visiting their healthcare provider,” Beech added in the news release. “While healthcare is indispensable, it only accounts for 20 percent of how health is created — genetics accounts for another 10 percent, and the other 70 percent is determined by behavior, social conditions and environment.”

With the funds from the grant, UH will also be able to expand research infrastructure, add to community partnerships, support complementary research, and invest in early-career investigators, according to the news release. UH also aims to develop solutions that could help ease the economic burden of chronic disease.

Report: Where Texas ranks among best and worst states to live in 2026

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After earning its worst-ever ranking last year, Texas has improved slightly on an evaluation of the best states to live, but it's still at the bottom of the pack.

Each year, WalletHub's analysts compare all 50 states using 51 livability metrics to measure their affordability, economy, education and health, quality of life, and safety. Factors that were weighed include the cost of living, homeownership rates, population and income growth rates, wealth gaps, public school system quality, road quality, crime rates, and many others.

The Lone Star State landed at No. 36 in 2026, making it the 15th worth state to live right now. That's on par with its 2024 ranking, and it's a two-spot improvement over its 2025 performance.

While Texas residents can brag about living in a state with the No. 1 highest number of restaurants per capita and the 7th best quality of life in the country, that's about it. Texas earned middling-to-poor scores among the four remaining livability rankings: safety (No. 33), affordability (No. 35), economy (No. 37), and education and health (No. 40).

Here's how Texas fared in other nationwide rankings in the study:

No. 27 – Income Growth
No. 30 – Housing Costs
No. 39 – Percentage of Population in Poverty
No. 42 – Percentage of Adults in Fair or Poor Health
No. 46 – Homeownership Rate
No. 49 – Percentage of Population Aged 25 and Older with a High School Diploma or Higher
No. 48 – Average Weekly Work Hours
No. 50 – Percentage of Insured Population

Texas has a lot of work to do to improve its livability for all of its residents, but especially for women, according to several other 2026 WalletHub studies. Texas is the fourth-worst state for women, the ninth-worst state for working mothers, and the seventh-worst place to have a baby based on limited access to maternal and pediatric healthcare.

At the very bottom of the report is New Mexico, ranking 50th overall, with Louisiana (No. 49), Mississippi (No. 48), Alaska (No. 47), and Arkansas (No. 46) rounding out the bottom five.

After holding on as the No. 1 best state to live for a few years in a row, Massachusetts now ranks No. 4 and was overtaken by Idaho (No. 1), New Jersey (No. 2), and Wisconsin (No. 3). New Hampshire rounds out the top five best states to live.

WalletHub's top 10 best states to live in 2026 are:

No. 1 – Idaho
No. 2 – New Jersey
No. 3 – Wisconsin
No. 4 – Massachusetts
No. 5 – New Hampshire
No. 6 – Wyoming
No. 7 – Utah
No. 8 – Minnesota
No. 9 – Pennsylvania
No. 10 – Florida

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

6 exciting Houston startup raises to know from July 2026

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Houston startups carried the fundraising momentum of Q1 and Q2 into July with several significant seed funding, Series A and Series B rounds.

From geothermal leaders to medtech innovators, these six Houston companies raised more than a quarter billion dollars last month alone, according to reporting by InnovationMap and our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Did we miss a funding round? Let us know by emailing innoeditor@innovationmap.com.

Altillion

Houston-based startup Altillion has secured $5 million in seed funding to accelerate the commercialization of its proprietary IRIS and ALIX technologies, which convert oilfield-produced water into valuable minerals, the company reported earlier this month.

San Francisco-based EIC Rose Rock and Houston-based Flathead Forge led the round. Altillion says the funding will go toward pilot facilities and commercial deployments as the company looks to scale in the U.S. Continue reading.

Buildforce

The U.S. is grappling with a current shortage of 50,000 electricians, according to the National Electrical Contractors Association. Photo via Unsplash

Houston-based Buildforce, which provides a tech-enabled staff platform geared toward electricians and electrical contractors, closed a $10 million Series A round led by Houston’s Saepio Capital last month.

Other investors in the round include Blue Heron Capital, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, S3 Ventures and Chicago Ventures.

Buildforce says the funding will help fuel its national expansion and further development of its technology.

The startup, founded in 2019, connects electricians with electrical contractors for commercial and industrial construction projects. Continue reading.

Hephae Energy Technology Corp.

The company develops ultra-high-temperature tools to withstand the heat of geothermal reservoirs. Photo via hephaeet.com

Houston-area startup Hephae Energy Technology Corp. closed a $17.8 million Series A financing round last month to commercialize its geothermal technology.

The round was co-led by Pennsylvania-based Susquehanna Sustainable Investments, which invests in early-stage climatech companies, and Copenhagen-based Underground Ventures, which focuses on geothermal energy startups. Alfa8, Baruch Future Ventures, Centaurus Capital LP, Elemental Impact, Exa Ventures, Future Ventures, Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, New System Ventures and True North Institute joined the round, along with existing Houston-based investor Nabors Industries. Hephae reports in a news release that the Series A round brings the company's total capital raised to $24.7 million. Continue reading.

TYBR Health

The company's B3 GEL System is designed to protect tendons, ligaments and muscles while they heal from orthopedic surgery. Photo via Unsplash

Houston-based healthtech startup TYBR Health has raised a $30 million Series A round to scale its B3 GEL System, which helps protect tendons from scarring after surgery, the company announced last month.

The round was led by Minneapolis-based Vensana Capital and Cleveland-based Mutual Capital Partners, with participation from Denver-based Neovate Capital Partners and existing investors, according to a news release from the company.

TYBR Health said it plans to use the funding to broaden the B3 GEL System's clinical applications, expand commercialization and conduct studies to evaluate its ability to protect tissue and improve healing outcomes. Continue reading.

Venus Aerospace

Venus Aerospace has secured funding from Mercury Fund, Lockheed Martin Ventures and others. Photo courtesy Venus Aerospace

Houston-based Venus Aerospace closed a $91 million Series B round last month and plans to scale the production of its hypersonic engine.

The round was led by Houston-based Mercury Fund with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6, Draper Associates, Starboard Star Venture Capital, Green Sands Equity and other investors, according to a news release.

The investment comes about a year after Venus completed the first U.S. flight test of its high-thrust rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE). The engine is expected to enable vehicles to travel four to six times the speed of sound from a conventional runway and is about 15 percent more efficient than traditional alternatives, according to the company. Continue reading.

Quaise Energy

A rendering of a Quaise Energy geothermal plant. Rendering via quaise.com

Houston-based Quaise Energy, a producer of utility-scale geothermal power, closed $134 million in a Series B round last month to advance its “superhot” geothermal power plant.

Climate-focused San Francisco-based investment firm Prelude Ventures led the round, with participation from JERA Co., Japan’s largest power generation company, and Idemitsu Kosan, one of Japan’s largest energy companies. Nearly all existing investors, including cleantech-focused investment firm Safar Partners, participated in the round.

The startup expects more equity and debt deals to close “imminently.” Quaise has raised $230 million since its founding in 2018. Continue reading.

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