Texas earns healthy rating as 2nd best state for nurses, Forbes says

health care heroes

Nurses deserve all the love. Photo by Patty Brito on Unsplash

With a global pandemic in the rearview and an aging workforce reaching retirement in larger proportions, strong healthcare is becoming increasingly crucial in the United States.

Nurses are in great demand throughout the nation and can make significant impacts in a state like Texas, which was just named the No. 2 best state for nurses in a study by Forbes Advisor.

Texas currently employs more than 231,000 nurses, the second-highest number in the country behind California's 325,620 nurses. Florida rounds out the top three with more than 197,000 nurses employed.

There are several factors to keep in mind when considering a career as a nurse, but one has been in a lot of recent discourse: the salary. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says nurses in the U.S. earn a median salary of $81,220 per year. While healthcare company Trusted Health places a Texas nurse's annual salary at $74,540 - lower than places like Florida and California, adjusted cost of living can make Texas more attractive.

"Salary is a significant factor in any professional’s career decisions, but it’s not the only one to weigh when deciding where to work," the report's author wrote. "You should also consider job availability, economic demand, and licensing processes before settling on a place to grow your career."

Regarding job availability, Projections Central estimates there will be a demand for more than 16,000 nursing positions in Texas between 2020 and 2030 - the second-best job outlook in the U.S.

Texas is also part of the Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC), which can help nurses transfer their licenses from other states.

"NLC members grant RNs multi-state licenses, which allow them to practice in any NLC-participating state without jumping through the hoops of meeting a new state’s specific licensing guidelines," the report says. "NLC nurses can offer their skills to another compact state in the event of a crisis and provide telehealth services across compact states."

The full report can be found on forbes.com.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Nurseify is an on-demand platform that allows nurses and health care organizations to take part in the gig economy. Photo via unsplash.com

Houston-based gig platform for nurses to launch app next month

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Health care executive Benjamin Foster knows that nurses are essential — especially in times of crisis.

In 2017, when Hurricane Harvey struck Houston, he watched as local health care organizations struggled to find nurses who could meet the desperate need at hard-to-reach facilities. And as Regional Chief Human Resources Officer at HCA Houston Healthcare, he had also grown accustomed to the high costs and inefficiencies of traditional medical staffing agencies.

In 2020, in response to the demand for nurses in the pandemic, he decided it was time to act, launching Nurseify in May of that year.

Nurseify is an on-demand platform that allows nurses and health care organizations to take part in the gig economy.With guidance from Rama Walker, Nurseify’s Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Operating Officer with a background in ER administration, the platform uses AI to match nurses with facilities looking to fill short-term assignments.

Nurses are able to set their rates and schedules through the app. Health care facilities can directly vet applicants through their profiles and ratings. The platform also can predict when there might be a higher demand for contract nurses at various facilities based on vacancies and increased patient volume.

“We hope to empower nurses and help individuals take control of their careers by offering transparency and a way to create schedules to better fit their lifestyles,” says Foster, CEO of Nurseify, in a statement. “In this gig-economy, it’s imperative to have an easy and effective way for nurses and healthcare facilities to communicate directly about opportunities, and Nurseify provides a place where they can do just that.”

Additionally, the platform features educational, financial, and support resources for nurse users, as well as options to work with entrepreneurial mentors and wellness coaches with the goal of empowering nurses in what's proven to be a demanding field, especially since the onset of the pandemic.

“As nurse advocates, we prioritize an honest hiring process and nurses’ work-life balance and overall wellbeing,” Walker adds in a statement.

According to the Nurseify team, more than 5,000 nurses have created profiles on the platform at press time; and 60 healthcare facilities have access to Nurseify.

Through the Nuresify mobile app, which launches in May, the company aims to attract more users and health care facilities.

Currently the company is focused on its operations in Texas, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, which were pilot states for Nurseify. But the company aims to expand nationally and internationally in the future.

Houston-based acute care startup Kare Technologies launched a similar platform for staffing within the senior living facility and caregiving realms in 2021. Read more about that company here.

In the latest round up of Houston innovation news you may have missed, student startups selected for a summer program, Texas might be among the best states for nurses, and more. Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images

Houston innovator joins ESG roundtable, Rice names cohort of student startups, and more innovation news

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It's been a busy season for the Houston innovation ecosystem, and for this reason, local startup and tech news may have fallen through some of the cracks.

In this roundup of short stories within Houston innovation, a software startup is focusing on diversity and inclusion, an angel network has a new partner organization, a Houston innovator is playing a major role in ESG, and more.

GoCo hosts its first-ever DEI Hackathon

GoCo is hosting its first hackathon. Photo via Getty Images

GoCo.io, a Houston-based human resources software-as-a-service company, is hosting its first hackathon for diversity, equity, and inclusion begining today, May 6, and continuing through tomorrow, May 7.

GoCo's entire staff is going to work for over 36 hours to build solutions aimed at promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion for small businesses.

"Building technology to help HR make a difference in the workplace is what we're all about at GoCo," says Allie Collins, head of GoCo's DEI Task Force, in a news release. "HR professionals are being called upon to make profound and meaningful changes to combat racism and inequities. We're hosting this event because our whole team is passionate about creating apps and resources to facilitate that change."

The competitors will be on teams and will present their projects on Monday, May 10, for a panel of judges.

Rice Alliance backs diversity-focused angel investment network

Maria Maso, CEO of baMa, has announced Rice Alliance as a partner organization. Photo courtesy of Nijalon Dunn

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship has become a baMa champion of diversity for angel network baMa, or the Business Angel Minority Association.

"Rice Alliance aims to foster an innovative and entrepreneurial culture that not only values differences, but also elevates them as sources of strength and innovation," says Rice Alliance's managing director, Brad Burke, in a news release.

According to the release, baMa will help to introduce Rice to more diverse businesses. The angel network has already tapped into Rice's ecosystem with the $50,000 investment prize baMa awarded during the Rice Business Plan Competition in March.

"Diversity and education go hand by hand so counting with the support of Rice Alliance is a huge step in order to accomplish baMa's goal: close the investment gap in minority-led startups," says baMa CEO, Maria Maso.

Topl named to ESG council

Kim Raath will serve on CNBC's ESG Council. Photo courtesy of Topl

Kim Raath, CEO of Houston-based blockchain company, Topl, has announced that she has been invited to join the CNBC's ESG Council. She was selected among execs from large corporations like companies such as The HEINEKEN Company, Nestlé, IHG Hotels & Resorts, Nissan Motor Corporation, Bain & Company, Credit Suisse, and more.

"As a young startup, this is one of our most exciting milestones. Sitting at the table with industry leaders is great momentum for both Topl's success and our larger ESG mission," Raath writes in Topl's newsletter. "Traceable transparency in supply chains is a game changer for global commerce, and now Topl can learn from and collaborate with multinational corporations. This opportunity will help position our purpose-built blockchain as a solution to solve some of the biggest and most critical problems our world faces, and as we strive to build a more sustainable future for all."

The council is a roundtable of 30 business leaders across industries focused on the challenges posed by sustainability — and the strategies needed to overcome them, according to Raath.

Is Texas a good state for nurses?

A new report ranks states based on their opportunities and friendly environment for nurses. Photo via Getty Images

The Lone Star State's nursing industry was put to the test for a new report from WalletHub, a personal financial website. The study compared all 50 states based on opportunity and competition and work environment. Texas ranked No. 12 overall.

Ranked solely on opportunity and competition — which included evaluating salary, schools, nurses per 1,000 residents, and more — Texas came in at No. 11.

The top states on the list were Arizona, Washington, and Nevada, respectively.

Rice University announces OwlSpark's ninth cohort

Meet the 10 student startups that are joining the OwlSpark family this summer. Photo courtesy of OwlSpark

Rice University's student startup accelerator has named 10 startup teams to its ninth cohort, which kicks off later this month. OwlSpark's 2021 cohort includes teams from across industries — hospitality, sports, oil and gas, consumer, staffing, automotive and more. According to a release from Rice, these are the companies selected:

  • Capybara - a networked platform that facilitates the company-to-company transfer of IT employees with similar skill sets (for example, software developers)
  • ChckMate – a data-driven platform designed to improve customer dining experiences, drive loyalty and increase revenue
  • GatherX Analytics – an AI software platform that predicts location and quantity of hydrocarbon liquid dropout for use by the upstream oil and gas industry
  • HARK – an easy-to-use app designed to significantly enhance the way in which neurodivergent or cognitively impaired individuals communicate real-time with caregivers and loved ones
  • Home Maintainer - a comprehensive solution for homeowners to manage and simplify home maintenance and efficiency
  • OneLab - a robust cloud-based repository designed for effective organization and easy access to a body of data on a specific area of research
  • Oversox– waterproof, durable, sock-like coverings designed to easily slip over the outside of a shoe for use by the serious hiker
  • rutd – an enterprise software and mobile application that provides immediate, actionable, suicide prevention resources to military veterans and family members
  • Tailer – a training platform and sales tool for electric vehicle dealerships and sales personnel
  • Yellow Saffron Labs – a risk analysis platform that gathers datasets from peer-reviewed scientific publications for use by organizations to observe industry trends or upcoming scientific disruptions or discoveries

A report found that Houston has only 3.35 health care workers for every 100 residents. Getty Images

Report finds Houston is short on health care workers

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Houston may be home to the world's largest medical center, but a new study indicates the region is also home to one of the lowest rates of health care workers among major U.S. metro areas.

The study, released by credit-building loan platform Self, shows the Houston metro area has 3.35 health care workers for every 100 residents. That places Houston at No. 10 on the study's list of the major metro areas (at least 1 million residents) with the lowest share of health care workers per capita, including doctors, nurses, and therapists.

The only other major metro area in Texas sitting toward the bottom rung of the ladder is Austin, with 3.17 health care workers per 100 residents. That puts Austin at No. 4 for the lowest rate of health care workers among major metro areas.

Houston's ranking in the Self study is juxtaposed with the city's status as a world-famous health care hub. Over 106,000 people work at the more than 60 institutions within the Texas Medical Center, which includes the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Texas Children's Hospital, and the Baylor College of Medicine.

The 1,345-acre medical complex pumps an estimated $25 billion a year into the regional economy.

Despite Houston's stature as a medical magnet, the metro area is witnessing an escalating shortage of doctors and nurses.

A 2016 report from the Texas Department of State Health Services envisions the supply of registered nurses (RNs) — the largest group of nursing professionals — will climb 38 percent from 2015 to 2030 in the Gulf Coast public health region, compared with a 60.5 percent surge in demand. That equates to a projected shortage of 13,877 RNs in 2030. The Gulf Coast region includes the Houston area.

From 2017 to 2030, the supply of primary care physicians in the Gulf Coast region will increase 19.8 percent while demand will spike 27.5 percent, according to a 2018 report from the Texas Department of State Health Services. Ten years from now, the region will suffer a shortage of 694 primary care physicians, the report predicts.

In a 2019 survey commissioned by the Texas Medical Center Health Policy Institute, about 90 percent of primary care physicians across the country predicted a shortage in their field within five years. Seventy-eight of specialty physicians anticipated a shortage of specialists.

On the consumer side, the survey found 19 percent of patients reported difficulty scheduling an initial visit with a primary care physician, and 15 percent ran into trouble setting up a new visit with a specialist.

"The best way to tell if we have a doctor shortage is by asking patients whether they can easily get an appointment," Dr. Arthur "Tim" Garson Jr., director of the Texas Medical Center Health Policy Institute in Houston, said in a 2019 release. "For now, they overwhelmingly say 'yes.'"

By 2030, Texas will experience the third largest shortage of physicians among the states (20,420 jobs), according to a study published in 2020 in the journal Human Resources for Health. Only California and Florida will see worse shortages, the study predicts. The physician shortage in Texas is being driven by a growing population, an aging population and an aging pool of doctors, according to the study.

Noting the country's growing and aging population, a study published in 2019 by the Association of American Medical Colleges predicts the U.S. confronts a shortage of up to 121,900 physicians by 2032.

The looming national shortage of RNs is also acute.

The country's RN workforce is projected to grow from 2.9 million in 2016 to 3.4 million in 2026, or 15 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, the bureau predicts the need for another 203,700 RNs each year from 2016 through 2026 to fill newly created positions and to replace retiring nurses.

"With patient care growing more complex, ensuring a sufficient RN workforce is not merely a matter of how many nurses are needed, but rather an issue of preparing an adequate number of nurses with the right level of education to meet health care demands," Ann Cary, dean of the Marieb College of Health and Human Services at Florida Gulf Coast University, said in a 2019 release

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Innovative Houston nonprofit partners with county organization to provide maternal health services

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PUSH Birth Partners, a Houston-based maternal health nonprofit, is teaming up with the Harris County Public Health Department to provide doula services for over 200 pregnant people free of cost.

Jacqueline McLeeland, CEO and founder of PUSH, says the program will begin in August and aims to improve maternal health and birth outcomes for vulnerable populations. McLeeland says the organization has built up a strong doula training program through their collective in partnership with March of Dimes and several local doula organizations.

McLeeland says PUSH aims to address poor maternal health outcomes for women of color in part by training more doulas of color who can help reduce racial disparities in care. A 2021 study by Harris County Public Health found Precinct 1, which is predominantly composed of people of color, had the highest maternal mortality rate of the county.

Through their collective, PUSH has trained two cohorts of doulas through an integrated care model, focused on providing collaborative care with medical providers in the healthcare system.

“Our programs are designed to advance health equity, we see the numbers, we see that women of color, specifically Black women in that group are disproportionately impacted,” McLeeland tells InnovationMap.

After receiving a $100,000 grant from the Episcopal Health Foundation in 2023, PUSH began their doula expansion program in Houston and they have since received an additional grant from EHF for the next fiscal year. McLeeland shares PUSH has also launched a pilot program called Blossoming Beyond Birth, sponsored by the Rockwell Fund, targeted towards improving maternal mental health through weekly support groups in Houston.

“It’s very exciting to know that we have come this far from where we started and to see how everything is coming together,” McLeeland shares.

Jacqueline McLeeland serves as chief executive and founder of non-profit PUSH Birth Partners who has trained and collaborated with a network of doulas for the partnership. Photo courtesy of Jacqueline McLeeland

For McLeeland, improving maternal health outcomes and providing support to people experiencing high-risk pregnancies are deeply personal goals. McLeeland has sickle cell anemia, a condition that can cause serious complications during pregnancy. During her first pregnancy in 2015, McLeeland was placed on bed rest two months before her due date at which point she had been working in clinical research within the pharmaceutical industry for over 12 years.

“People don’t realize the magnitude of what women go through, during pregnancy and after,” McLeeland says. “There’s a lot of emotional, psychological, and physical tolls depending on how the pregnancy and delivery went.”

After giving birth to her first child, McLeeland took maternity leave, during which she began to research maternal morbidity and mortality trends, information which she says was not widely discussed at the time.

McLeeland says entering the maternal healthcare field felt like a necessity following her second pregnancy. Several months after giving birth to her second child, McLeeland says she received a bill for a surgical procedure that was performed during her cesarean section without her or her husband’s consent. McLeeland says that was the first time she was made aware of the surgery.

“The procedure that was claimed to have been performed could have put my life in jeopardy by hemorrhaging based off of additional research I did once, I came across that information,” McLeeland explains. “These are some of the things that happen in the healthcare system that make people skeptical of trusting in the healthcare system, trusting in doctors.”

McLeeland says the key to improving maternal and birth outcomes for vulnerable populations is to encourage the partnership between doulas, community healthcare workers, and physicians and hopes to further this collaboration through future programming.

Houston-based clean energy site developer raises $300M to decarbonize big tech projects

fresh funding

Houston energy executives have started a new company dedicated to developing clean-powered infrastructure for the large electric loads.

Cloverleaf Infrastructure, dually headquartered in Houston and Seattle, Washington, announced its launch and $300 million raised from NGP and Sandbrook Capital, two private equity firms. The company's management team also invested in the company.

As emerging technology continues to grow electricity load demand, Cloverleaf has identified an opportunity to develop large-scale digital infrastructure sites powered by low-carbon electricity.

"The rapid growth in demand for electricity to power cloud computing and artificial intelligence poses a major climate risk if fueled by high-emission fossil fuels," David Berry, Cloverleaf's CEO, says in a news release. "However, it's also a major opportunity to catalyze the modernization of the US grid and the transition to a smarter and more sustainable electricity system through a novel approach to development.

"Cloverleaf is committed to making this vision a reality with the support of leading climate investors like Sandbrook and NGP."

Berry, who's based in Houston, previously co-founded and served as CFO at ConnectGen and Clean Line Energy Partners, clean energy and transmission developers. Last year, he co-founded Cloverleaf with Seattle-based Brian Janous and CTO Jonathan Abebe, who most recently held a senior role at the United States Department of Energy. Nur Bernhardt, director of Energy Strategy at Microsoft who's also based in Seattle, rounds out the executive team as vice president.

"The large tech companies have become dominant players in the electricity sector, and they are genuinely determined to power their growth with the lowest possible emissions," Janous, who serves as chief commercial officer, says in the release. "Achieving this objective doesn't depend on disruptive new technologies as much as it does on dedicated teams working hand in hand with utility partners to maximize the use of the clean generation, storage, and other technologies we already have."

Cloverleaf will work with regional U.S. utilities and data center operators to provide clean electricity at scale through strategic investments in transmission, grid interconnection, land, onsite power generation, and electricity storage, per the release.

"The sustainable development of digital infrastructure at scale is fundamentally a technical power problem," Alfredo Marti, partner at Sandbrook, adds. "We have witnessed members of the Cloverleaf team effectively address this challenge for many years through a blend of creativity, specialized engineering, a partnership mindset, and astute capital deployment."

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

Houston resilience tech innovator proves out platform amid Hurricane Beryl

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 245

Earlier this month, Ali Mostafavi got an unexpected chance to pilot his company's data-backed and artificial intelligence-powered platform — all while weathering one of Houston's most impactful storms.

Mostafavi, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Texas A&M University, founded Resilitix.AI two years ago, and with the help of his lab at A&M, has created a platform that brings publicly available data into AI algorithms to provide its partners near-real time information in storm settings.

As Hurricane Beryl came ashore with Houston on its path, Mostafavi says he had the opportunity to both test his technology and provide valuable information to his community during the storm.

"We were in the process of fine tuning some of our methods and algorithms behind our technology," Mostafavi says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "When disasters happen, you go to activation mode. We put our technology development and R&D efforts on hold and try to test our technology in an operational setting."

The platform provides its partners — right now, those include local and state organizations and emergency response teams — information on evacuation reports, street flooding, and even damage sustained based on satellite imagery. Mostafavi says that during Beryl, users were wondering how citizens were faring amid rising temperatures and power outages. The Resilitix team quickly pivoted to apply algorithms to hospital data to see which neighborhoods were experiencing high volumes of patients.

"We had the ability to innovate on the spot," Mostafavi says, adding that his own lack of power and internet was an additional challenge for the company. "When an event happens, we start receiving requests and questions. ... We had to be agile and adapt our methods to be responsive. Then at the same time, because we haven't tested it, we have to verify that we are confident (in the information we provide)."

On the episode, Mostafavi shares how Hurricane Harvey — which occurred shortly after Mostafavi moved to Houston — inspired the foundation of Resilitix and how Houston is the ideal spot to grow the company.

"We are very excited that our company is Houston based," he says. "We should not be just ground zero of disasters. We have to also be ground zero for solutions as well. I believe Houston should be the hub for resilience tech innovation as it is for energy transition.

"I think energy transition, climatetech, energy tech, and disaster tech go hand in hand," Mostafavi continues. "I feel that we are in the right place."

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