A Houston-area company has created an easy-to-use health-check app for employees returning to work. Pexels

A Woodlands-based health services company recently announced a new app that can serve as a self-service pre-screening tool for COVID-19 to be used by employees to return to their workplace.

Axiom Medical created the CheckIn2Work app to make the transition into the workplace after the coronavirus crisis safer and easier, making it simple for businesses and offices to reopen after stay-at-home orders shut down workplaces during the height of the pandemic.

"Given the current challenges we have all experienced with COVID-19, we recognize the workplace will be forever changed," says Axiom Medical President and CEO Mark Robinson. "Our CheckIn2Work app simply adds another layer to protecting the health of team members, customers, and vendors from the risk of infectious disease in the workplace."

The app includes features such as a 24/7 self-service illness screening with the latest screening criteria approved by Chief Medical Officer Scott Cherry. The app also includes immediate access to U.S.-based Clearance Center for exposure/illness alerts, real-time reporting, and ongoing best practices to reduce the spread of the virus in the work environment.

When an app user is flagged as exposed to the virus, Axiom Medical's Rapid Response Contagious Respiratory Illness Assessment Clearance Center professionals can conduct secondary screening procedures via a phone call to confirm cases and eliminate false positives.

The app has 50,000 users already from Axiom's new and existing clients who have signed on to the platform. Some of their partners include BJ Services, Tyson Foods, ISS Facility Services, and Fort Bend Kia, Robinson says it creates safe and healthy facilities for both employees and customers.

"It enables our clients to be appropriately responsive to trying to screen out the infection in their workplace," says Robinson, "It also gives employees confidence that returning to work and exposing themselves to their coworkers is safe while providing customers who have contact with the employees with the confidence who they will be interacting with has been screened and cleared."

For the health services company, keeping employees safe has been the heart of their mission since it was founded more than two decades ago. Axiom Medical markets itself as an employer's outsourced "in house" medical department, managing a complete array of occupational health services such as scheduling exams, verifying results for accuracy, and maintaining records.

"Our focus is on the health of the worker in the workplace," says Robinson. "Both our traditional services and our new service all focus on keeping people as healthy as possible, returning them to work as quickly as possible after an injury or illness keeps them out of the workplace, and making sure they are tested for a variety of risks."

CheckIn2Work is now available on iOS and Android mobile devices including a web portal where employees can check in before work every day to check for symptoms of COVID-19. The app is adaptable with language settings in English and Spanish and allows for customizable questions to fit an organization's needs.

"I hope we can continue to take this seriously and take good precautions," says Robinson. "This is a really horrible disease, it isn't just about the people who die as a result, it's also about those who are permanently disabled because of it. Those weeks in a hospital are mirrored by more weeks in recovery before they can even think about working again."

The Cannon is expecting to open by the end of next month. Courtesy of The Cannon

Photos: The Cannon enters home stretch ahead of opening next month

Cannon Countdown

If all goes according to plan, The Cannon's new space will be up and running by the end of June. The bulk of the construction, which started a little over a year ago, is done, and the team is on the home stretch.

The original plan was to open in March, but construction faced a series of setbacks due to weather.

"Houston's rainy winter pushed back our initial timeline a bit, but we are currently on track for opening late next month and are excited to get our amazing community moved into our brand new home," says Lawson Gow, founder and CEO of The Cannon. "We can't wait to show off our space to Houston's entrepreneurial community through events, programming, new partnerships and more, continuing in our mission to support Houston's startups and small businesses."

Two Houston-based companies are responsible for the 120,000-square-foot, 32-acre coworking and entrepreneurship campus in West Houston — Burton Construction is the general contractor and Abel Design Group is the architect.

The new space is already 80 percent pre-leased. Currently, The Cannon has a 20,000-square-foot space next door to the construction site. While companies working out of this so-called "waiting room" building will be moving over, Gow, who is the son of InnovationMap's CEO, is excited to announce a few new startups excited to call The Cannon home next month.

The goal of The Cannon's project is to fulfill a need Gow says he recognized in Houston.

"The problem that we're addressing — every startup is addressing a problem — is Houston has really struggled to develop vibrant startup communities," Gow tells InnovationMap in a previous interview. "Entrepreneurs and talent will leave to go to Austin and beyond, and so the mission was to create a place and an infrastructure and a density of resources to prevent them from having to do that and keep our entrepreneurs here."

The new space will allow Gow and his team to host pitch events and even live fundraising events, due to a partnership with LetsLaunch.

Progress

Courtesy of The Cannon

The Cannon's construction delays were mostly due to a rainy season in Houston.

Take a video tour of The Cannon here:

The Cannon Flythroughwww.youtube.com

Houston-based WorkLodge announced its annual contest to give away a year of free work. Getty Images

Houston coworking space to give away a free year of workspace to a worthy startup

Need space?

WorkLodge, a Houston-based coworking space franchise, is again offering up a chance for a free year of space for a lucky startup in town.

IGNITE by WorkLodge, an annual program, launched on March 14 and closes on April 7. Applicants can enter for free at ignitebyworklodge.com. The form asks for business ownership details, marketing, basic financial information, and entrepreneurial vision questions, per the website.

If selected as a finalist, the startup founder will pitch their business at a judging panel on April 11 at 6:30 p.m. at WorkLodge's Woodland location located at 25700 I-45 Suite 400. It's at this event where a winner will be selected.

"During our previous IGNITE By WorkLodge for nonprofits office giveaway, we saw an astonishing turnout of individuals with incredible business concepts and no central office to help their dreams become reality," says WorkLodge CEO Mike Thakur in a release. "Through IGNITE By WorkLodge, our goal is to serve as the invisible supporters, knowledgeable mentors, and loudest cheerleaders for our community's startups. We're happy to give one lucky business the freedom to focus on their meaningful work in an environment designed for growth."

IGNITE by WorkLodge also has a contest for nonprofits, which begins accepting applications on October 1. Last year's nonprofit winner was Mythiquer Pickett, founder of The Woodlands-based nonprofit, We See Abilities.

"Winning IGNITE By WorkLodge has greatly impacted We See Abilities — finally a place we can call home," Pickett says on the program's website. "Businesses, family, and friends can see we have an established imprint in the community with this brand-new office by WorkLodge."

WorkLodge was founded in 2015 in Houston. The company has two locations in Houston — one in The Woodlands and one in Vintage Park. Dallas has two locations, Fort Worth has one, and St. Petersburg, Florida, is sixth location and only office outside of Texas.

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Houston hospital performs first fully robotic heart transplant in the U.S.

robotic surgery

A team at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, led by Dr. Kenneth Liao, successfully performed the first fully robotic heart transplant in the United States earlier this year, the Houston hospital recently shared.

Liao, a professor and chief of cardiothoracic transplantation and circulatory support at Baylor College of Medicine and chief of cardiothoracic transplantation and mechanical circulatory support at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, used a surgical robot to implant a new heart in a 45-year-old male patient through preperitoneal space in the abdomen by making small incisions.

The robotic technology allowed the medical team to avoid opening the chest and breaking the breast bone, which reduces the risk of infection, blood transfusions and excessive bleeding. It also leads to an easier recovery, according to Liao.

"Opening the chest and spreading the breastbone can affect wound healing and delay rehabilitation and prolong the patient's recovery, especially in heart transplant patients who take immunosuppressants," Liao said in a news release. "With the robotic approach, we preserve the integrity of the chest wall, which reduces the risk of infection and helps with early mobility, respiratory function and overall recovery."

The patient received the heart transplant in March, after spending about four months in the hospital due to advanced heart failure. According to Baylor, he was discharged home after recovering from the surgery in the hospital for a month without complications.

"This transplant shows what is possible when innovation and surgical experience come together to improve patient care," Liao added in the release. "Our goal is to offer patients the safest, most effective and least invasive procedures, and robotic technology allows us to do that in extraordinary ways."

7 can't miss Houston business and innovation events for July

where to be

Editor's note: While many Houstonians are flocking to vacation destinations, there are still plenty of opportunities to network and learn at tech and business events for those sticking close to home this month. From an inaugural biotech summit to the 12th edition of a local pitch showcase, here are the Houston business and innovation events you can't miss in July and how to register. Please note: this article might be updated to add more events.

July 10 - Out in Tech Mixer 

Out in Tech Houston provides an inclusive networking space for LGBTQ+ people and allies working in tech. Check out this relaxed, social-mixer event, hosted on the second Thursday of every month.

This event is Thursday, July 10, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Second Draught. Register here.

July 14 – Latinas in Tech Coworking Day 

Connect with fellow Latinas in the industry at Sesh Coworking. Network or work alongside peers, board members and community leaders in a shared office environment.

This event is Monday, July 14, from 9-11:30 a.m. at Sesh Coworking. Find more information here.

July 17 – UTMB Innovation VentureX Summit

Attend the inaugural UTMB Innovation VentureX Summit, where innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers and investors will dive into the future of biotech. Expect panel discussions, fireside chats, a technology showcase and networking opportunities.

This event is Thursday, July 17, from 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m. at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Find more information here.

July 17 – Open Project Night 

Collaborate on solutions for some of Houston’s most pressing issues at this month’s Open Project Night at Impact Hub Houston. Hear from guest speakers and listen to open mic pitches. July’s theme is Decent Work & Economic Growth.

This event is Thursday, July 17, from 5:30-7:30 p.m at Impact Hub Houston. Register here.

July 24 – NASA Tech Talks

Every fourth Thursday of the month, NASA experts, including longtime engineer Montgomery Goforth, present on technology development challenges NASA’s Johnson Space Center and the larger aerospace community are facing and how they can be leveraged by Houston’s innovation community. Stick around after for drinks and networking at Second Draught.

This event is Thursday, July 24, from 6-7 p.m. at the Ion. Register here.

July 30 – Ion Bike Club

Join Bike Houston at the Ion for a 45-minute guided cruise through the Ion District and Midtown. Afterward, enjoy a complimentary beer and network with like-minded riders at Second Draught.

This event is Wednesday, July 30, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Ion. Register here.

July 31 – Bayou Startup Showcase

Hear pitches from startups and small businesses from Rice University’s OwlSpark and the University of Houston’s RED Labs accelerators at the 12th annual Bayou Startup Showcase. Read more about this year’s teams here.

This event is Thursday, July 31, from 3:30-7 p.m. at the Ion. Register here.

Houston researchers: Here's what it takes to spot a great new idea

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Having a “promotion focus” really does create a mental lens through which new ideas are more visible.

Key findings:

  • New ideas can be crucially important to businesses, driving innovation and preventing stagnation.
  • Recognizing those ideas, though, isn’t always easy.
  • Nurturing what is known as “promotion focus” can help managers spot fresh ideas.

Whenever the late surgeon Michael DeBakey opened a human chest, he drew on a lifetime of resources: the conviction that heart surgery could and should be vastly improved, the skill to venture beyond medicine’s known horizons and the vision to recognize new ideas in everyone around him, no matter how little formal training they had.

Appreciating new ideas is the heartbeat of business as well as medicine. But innovation is surprisingly hard to recognize. In a pioneering 2017 article, Rice Business Professor Jing Zhou and her colleagues published their findings on the first-ever study of the traits and environments that allow leaders to recognize new ideas.

Recent decades have produced a surge of research looking at how and when employees generate fresh ideas. But almost nothing has been written on another crucial part of workplace creativity: a leader’s ability to appreciate new thinking when she sees it.

Novelty, after all, is what drives company differentiation and competitiveness. Work that springs from new concepts sparks more investigation than work based on worn, already established thought. Companies invest millions to recruit and pay star creatives.

Yet not every leader can spot a fresh idea, and not every workplace brings out that kind of discernment. In four separate studies, Zhou and her coauthors examined exactly what it takes to see a glittering new idea wherever it appears. Their work sets the stage for an entirely new field of future research.

First, though, the team had to define their key terms. “Novelty recognition” is the ability to spot a new idea when someone else presents it. “Promotion focus,” previous research has shown, is a comfort level with new experiences that evokes feelings of adventure and excitement. “Prevention focus” is the opposite trait: the tendency to associate new ideas with danger, and respond to them with caution.

But does having “promotion focus” as opposed to “prevention focus” color the ability to see novelty? To find out, Zhou’s team came up with an ingenious test, artificially inducing these two perspectives through a series of exercises. First, they told 92 undergraduate participants that they would be asked to perform a set of unrelated tasks. Then the subjects guided a fictional mouse through two pencil and paper maze exercises.

While one exercise showed a piece of cheese awaiting the mouse at the end of the maze (the promise of a reward), the other maze depicted a menacing owl nearby (motivation to flee).

Once the participants had traced their way through the mazes with pencils, they were asked to rate the novelty of 33 pictures — nine drawings of space aliens and 24 unrelated images. The students who were prepped to feel an adventurous promotion focus by seeking a reward were much better at spotting the new or different details among these images than the students who’d been cued to have a prevention focus by fleeing a threat.

The conclusion: a promotion focus really does create a mental lens through which new ideas are more visible.

Zhou’s team followed this study with three additional studies, including one that surveyed 44 human resource managers from a variety of companies. For this study, independent coders rated the mission statements of each firm, assessing their cultures as “innovative” or “not innovative.” The HR managers then evaluated a set of written practices — three that had been in use for years, and three new ones that relied on recent technology. The managers from the innovative companies were much better at rating the new HR practices for novelty and creativity. To recognize novelty, in other words, both interior and external environments make a difference.

The implications of the research are groundbreaking. The first ever done on this subject, it opens up a completely new research field with profound questions. Can promotion focus be created? How much of this trait is genetic, and how much based on natural temperament, culture, environment and life experience? Should promotion focus be cultivated in education? If so, what would be the impact? After all, there are important uses for prevention focus, such as corporate security and compliance. Meanwhile, how can workplaces be organized to bring out the best in both kinds of focus?

Leaders eager to put Zhou’s findings to use right away, meanwhile, might look to the real-world model of Michael DeBakey. Practice viewing new ideas as adventures, seek workplaces that actively push innovation and, above all, cultivate the view that every coworker, high or low, is a potential source of glittering new ideas.

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This article originally appeared on Rice Business Wisdom.

Jing Zhou is the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Management and Psychology in Organizational Behavior at the Jones Graduate School of Business of Rice University. Zhou, J., Wang, X., Song, J., & Wu, J. (2017). "Is it new? Personal and contextual influences on perceptions of novelty and creativity." Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(2): 180-202.