Houston hospital named among smartest in the nation

hi, tech

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center was recognized for advancements in electronic functionality, AI and robotics. Photo via mdanderson.org

Houston hospitals are chock-full of smart people. But they’re also equipped with lots of “smart” technology. In fact, five local hospitals appear on Newsweek’s new list of the world’s best “smart” hospitals.

To compile the list, Newsweek teamed up with data provider Statista to rank the world’s top 330 hospitals for the use of smart technology. The ranking factors were electronic functionality, telemedicine, digital imaging, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics.

The highest-ranked Houston hospital is the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, appearing at No. 6. The hospital was recognized for advancements in electronic functionality, AI and robotics.

“MD Anderson has a significant opportunity and a responsibility to our many stakeholders to create a digital ecosystem that promotes collaboration and advances scientific discovery to enhance patient outcomes,” David Jaffray, the cancer center’s chief technology and digital officer, said in a 2021 news release.

“Through our ongoing focus on enabling the use of new technologies to place quantitative data in context for our researchers,” Jaffray added, “we foster cutting-edge oncology data science to inform our cancer discovery research and to accelerate translation of our research findings into benefits for cancer patients.”

Ahead of MD Anderson on the list are:

  1. Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
  2. Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland.
  3. Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
  4. Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
  5. Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

Other Houston hospitals on the list are:

  • Houston Methodist Hospital, No. 11.
  • Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, No. 105.
  • Texas Children’s Hospital, No. 197.
  • Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, No. 266.
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Houston hospitals got their report cards. Photo by Dwight C. Andrews/Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau

Here's how Houston hospitals stack up when it comes to safety, according to a national study

Best in class

Close to half of the Houston area's general acute-care hospitals are at the top of their class, according to new safety grades assigned to U.S. hospitals. But one hospital in the region is failing on the safety front, the grades show.

In its fall 2019 report card for acute-care hospitals, The Leapfrog Group gives letter grades of A, B, C, D, and F based on the hospitals' ability to shield patients from avoidable errors, injuries, accidents, and infections. The nonprofit represents hundreds of public and private employers that buy healthcare benefits.

In the Houston area, 19 hospitals earned an A, with 14 receiving a B, seven getting a C, one picking up a D and one being slapped with an F.

Chris Skisak, executive director of the Houston Business Coalition on Health, notes that 23 percent of hospitals in the Houston areas saw their Leapfrog grades go up while just 11 percent saw their grades go down. The coalition is a regional leader for The Leapfrog Group.

"Houston-area hospitals do care about their grades," Skisak says, "and going back to 2016, most obtained a higher grade after receiving a lower grade the previous assessment period. Houston is fortunate to have [about] 50 percent of its hospitals earn consistent A grades."

For the first time in at least four years, The Leapfrog Group did hit one Houston-area hospital — Huntsville Memorial Hospital — with an F. On the spring 2019 report card, the hospital received a D. In the fall of 2018, the mark was a C.

Huntsville Memorial Hospital currently is combating what's been described as a "dire financial situation."

In a November 1 statement, the Walker County Hospital District, which owns the Huntsville hospital, said the separate nonprofit entity that runs the hospital — Walker County Hospital Corp. — was beset by monetary woes and was on the verge of declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy. As a result, the district warned, the hospital might close.

According to The Huntsville Item, a proposed rescue of the hospital would place ownership and management in the hands of a joint venture between the hospital district and Plano-based Community Hospital Corp., a hospital management company. The nonprofit Plano company provides supply-chain services to a Huntsville medical practice, Huntsville Orthopedic Surgery and Sports Medicine PLLC.

In the statement, the district's board says it "remains committed to maintaining a viable hospital for the community and to improving hospital operations and services."

The Leapfrog Group graded a total of 42 hospitals in the Houston area. The nonprofit released its fall 2019 report card on November 7.

Houston-area hospitals that earned an A were:

  • Houston Methodist Baytown Hospital
  • HCA Houston Healthcare Conroe
  • HCA Houston Healthcare West
  • Houston Methodist Hospital
  • Houston Methodist West Hospital
  • Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital
  • Memorial Hermann Southeast
  • Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital
  • Memorial Hermann Northeast, Humble
  • Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital
  • HCA Houston Healthcare Kingwood
  • CHI St. Luke's Health Memorial Livingston
  • Houston Methodist Clear Lake Hospital in Nassau Bay
  • HCA Houston Healthcare Pearland
  • Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital
  • CHI St. Luke's Health The Woodlands Hospital
  • Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital
  • Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital
  • HCA Houston Healthcare Clear Lake in Webster

Skisak says the Leapfrog report card "is a valuable resource for employers to share with their employees so that they can self-navigate to the safest and highest quality hospitals."

"The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade offers critical patient safety information to consumers, in an easily digestible way, so that they can make informed decisions about where they seek care in the Houston area," he says in a release.

The Leapfrog Group bases its twice-a-year grades for hospital safety on 28 sets of publicly available data from more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals.

Houston, home to the largest medical center in the world, was ranked among the best cities for health care in the country. Photo by Dwight C. Andrews/Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau

Houston recognized among the best hospital cities in the nation

just what the doctor ordered

As home to Texas Medical Center — the world's largest medical complex — it stands to reason that Houston ranks among the country's best cities for health care. A new study bolsters that notion, but it also points out that several health care measures in Houston need some TLC.

The study, conducted by digital health care provider Medbelle, ranks Houston as the ninth best "hospital city" in the United States. Medbelle sifted through data in three categories (health care infrastructure, quality of health care and access to health care) to develop the ranking. Within those categories, Medbelle examined factors like quality of medical education, number of hospital beds, shortage of nurses, efficiency of cancer treatment, and prevalence of mental health specialists.

"Houston is known internationally as the home of one of the best medical communities in the world," the City of Houston declares.

In the Medbelle study, Boston landed at No. 1 in the U.S.; Tokyo took the global crown. At No. 13, Dallas was the only other Texas city to earn a place on the U.S. list.

Medbelle says it compiled the ranking to highlight regional hospital "ecosystems" rather than specific hospitals. The Houston area has more than 85 hospitals.

Houston's hospital ecosystem scored 94.92 out of 100, yet sits in next-to-last place for access to health care (48.83 out of 100), Medbelle notes. Daniel Kolb, co-founder and managing director of Medbelle, says this means that while Houston enjoys one of the best medical infrastructures in the world, a relatively small percentage of people in the region can take advantage of it.

In 2018, nearly 1 in 5 residents of the Houston area (18.6 percent) lacked health insurance, the U.S. Census Bureau says. That's the highest rate of uninsured residents among the country's 25 most populous metro areas. Affordability and availability continue to exacerbate the health insurance predicament in Houston and around the country.

"The single biggest issue in health care for most Americans is that their health costs are growing much faster than their wages are," Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, says in a release. "Costs are prohibitive when workers making $25,000 a year have to shell out $7,000 a year just for their share of family premiums."

For those who can afford medical care, the Houston area boasts some of the best hospitals in the U.S. MD Anderson Cancer Center reigns as the country's top cancer hospital, for instance.

In May, The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit representing large employers in the U.S., assigned its highest grade — "A" — to these nine hospitals in the Houston area:

  • HCA Houston Healthcare (Kingwood)
  • Houston Methodist Hospital
  • Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital
  • Houston Methodist West Hospital
  • Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital
  • Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center
  • Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital
  • Tomball Regional Medical Center
  • West Houston Medical Center

From another perspective, U.S. News & World Report ranks Houston Methodist Hospital as the best hospital in the Houston area, followed by Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center, Memorial Hermann Greater Heights Hospital, Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, and Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital.

Meanwhile, Houston-area physicians hold Texas Children's Hospital West Campus in the highest regard among the region's hospitals, trailed by Houston Methodist West Hospital, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Texas Children's Hospital, and Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital.
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Texas-based 'DoorDash for laundry' startup tumbles into Houston market

No Scrubs

Laundry may seem like an endless task that piles up, but a new service offers a solution to overwhelmed Houston families.

NoScrubs, an Austin-based home laundry pickup service has just expanded to Houston. Described by the company as "DoorDash — but for laundry," they wash customer's clothes at local laundromats and return them the same day, folded and ready to be put away.

The service took off like gangbusters in Austin, making an expansion to the state's largest city an obvious choice. It's not universal coverage just yet.

For now, only the following ZIP codes have NoScrubs service available: 77002, 77004, 77005, 77006, 77007, 77008, 77009, 77010, 77018, 77019, 77024, 77025, 77027, 77046, 77056, 77057, 77081, 77098, 77401, 77030, 77003.

A single pickup starts at $40 for 20 pounds of laundry, while the basic monthly subscription is $60 for two pickups. All services use hypoallergenic detergents.

The average American family spends about 240 hours a year on laundry, making it a very time-consuming chore. For people with disabilities, difficult work schedules, and other circumstances, it can be a real help, says co-founder Matt O'Connor.

"Some of our favorite customer stories simply revolve around saving people time when they have something challenging going on," he writes in an email. "For example, one customer reviewed NoScrubs saying 'So happy I could cry! (Partially because I'm pregnant and my emotions are heightened!)...1000% recommend if you have time restrictions or physical restrictions! ' So, whether it’s saving time, the affordability, or the pleasantly surprising turnaround time, NoScrubs has a variety of benefits for any customer."

NoScrubs is also a new opportunity for Houston's gig workers. Because there are no passengers, it can be a safer alternative to driving ride share for women and other people apprehensive about having strangers in their cars. As NoScrubs partners with local laundromats, drivers are also going to centralized locations rather than all over the map, leading to less wear and tear on their cars. The laundromats benefit as well, since NoScrubs loads are ones that would otherwise be done at home.

"Our model makes driving a tiny fraction of the time, so folks who don’t want to wear down their vehicles and spend a ton on gas love working at NoScrubs," added O'Connor.

Here's what's next for Houston’s Tempest Droneworx after SXSW Speed Pitch win

winner, winner

It’s not easy to be a standout at South by Southwest, especially during SXSW Interactive, which is the subsection of the festival that focuses on new media, technology and entrepreneurship.

But it’s even more difficult to win at SXSW Pitch, the competition for startups and entrepreneurs that showcases innovative new technology to a panel of industry experts, high-profile media professionals, venture capital investor, and angel investors.

Tempest Droneworx, a Houston-based company that provides real-time intelligence collected through drones, robots and sensors, did just that last month, taking home the Best Speed Pitch award. It was also named a finalist and alternate in the full SXSW Pitch competition. The company is known for it flagship product, Harbinger, a software solution that agnostically gathers data at virtually any scale and presents that data in easy-to-understand visualizations using a video game engine.

Tempest CEO and founder Ty Audronis says his company won based on its merits and the impact it’s making and will make on the world. Audronis founded the company after his hometown of Paradise, California, was destroyed by a wildfire in 2018.

“(SXSW) was a huge moment for our team,” says Audronis, whose background is in science visualization, data visualization and visual effects for the movie industry. “This is about what everyone at Tempest Droneworx has created, and our mission to make sure that issues—like the one that befell Paradise, California, my hometown, and the inspiration for our Harbinger software—don’t become the full-blown (disasters)."

Audronis shares that the company is working to release an agriculture beta this summer and is raising a Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) round through the AFWERX, the Department of the Air Force’s innovation arm.

Tempest’s Harbinger is impressing investors and clients alike, but what is it exactly and what does it do?

The best way to explain the solution is in how it’s redefining the agriculture space. Tempest has deployed the product at Grand Farm in North Dakota, an agtech operation that seeks to promote sustainable, climate-resilient farming using applied technology.

“We decided to go down the road of agriculture,” Audronis says. “We're currently installed at the Grand Farm in North Dakota, which is a farm that is very closely tied to Microsoft. They do third-party verification of new soils and fertilizers, and we are helping them with visualizing the data that they're getting from their sensors.”

Additionally, Audronis and his co-founder and wife, Dana Abramovitz, spearhead a pilot program at Doubting Thomas Farms, an organic farm in Minnesota, where the company has installed 22 in-ground sensors that can measure volatile organic emissions.

To further optimize their solutions approach, Tempest Droneworx will also train artificial intelligence to look for overspray from neighboring non-organic farms. This will help maintain organic certification and reduce insurance claims for lost crops.

“This will save Doubting Thomas Farms and other organic farms a boatload of cash,” Audronis says.

During an exclusive tour with InnovationMap, Audronis pulled up a live feed of sensors buried around the Minnesota farm up on the conference room display. The feed did, in fact, look like a video game, with the sensors giving real-time data about the farm’s temperature, moisture level, humidity, CO2 and nitrogen.

Harbinger will collect, extract and extrapolate all of the data and later provide a digital almanac for farmers to track the history of their crops.

As the office tour continued, Audronis pointed out the company’s expanding partnership with the U.S. Military.

As a retired U.S. Navy veteran with over two decades of experience designing, building and piloting drones, Audronis understands that Harbinger has multiple military applications that will ultimately save lives—a core tenet of his company’s mission.

The company has launched a robotic dog known as UBU, developed by Tempest partner Ghost Robotics, that enables faster, more accurate ground surveys for explosive devices. This task previously required multiple airmen and hours to complete, Audronis says.

With agriculture and military initiatives in progress and making an impact, Audronis hopes to one day bring his original vision for Tempest Droneworx and Harbinger full circle by getting the call to combat California’s next catastrophic wildfire.

“We're proving our technology in military and in agriculture right now,” Audronis says. “Eventually, I would like to still save some lives with wildfire. That's really the purpose of the company … Whether it's agriculture, smart cities, the bottom line is saving lives through real-time situational awareness."

New energy innovation and coworking spaces open at the Ion

moving in

Houston-based Occidental officially opened its new Oxy Innovation Center with a ribbon cutting at the Ion last week.

The opening reflects Oxy and the Ion's "shared commitment to advancing technology and accelerating a lower-carbon future," according to an announcement from the Ion.

Oxy, which was named a corporate partner of the Ion in 2023, now has nearly 6,500 square feet on the fourth floor of the Ion. Rice University and the Rice Real Estate Company announced the lease of the additional space last year, along with agreements with Fathom Fund and Activate.

At the time, the leases brought the Ion's occupancy up to 90 percent.

Additionally, New York-based Industrious plans to launch its coworking space at the Ion on May 8. The company was tapped as the new operator of the Ion’s 86,000-square-foot coworking space in Midtown in January.

Dallas-based Common Desk previously operated the space, which was expanded by 50 percent in 2023 to 86,000 square feet.

CBRE agreed to acquire Industrious in a deal valued at $400 million earlier this year. Industrious also operates another local coworking space is at 1301 McKinney St.

Industrious will host a launch party celebrating the new location Thursday, May 8. Find more information here.


  

Oxy Innovation Center. Photo via LinkedIn.

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