Employees can pragmatically absorb only one or two major changes per year, yet leaders are planning three or four by 2027, according to research. Leaders who want to help their teams navigate change must pay close attention to how people are experiencing it. They can apply three strategies to help: Make dialogue with employees nonnegotiable, develop a shared change story, and sequence changes better. In 2021-2022, CareRx was handling an ambitious expansion. In a span of 20 months, the Canadian pharmacy services company tripled its business through a series of acquisitions. Each acquired company brought its own processes, systems, and cultural norms. Employees barely had time to adjust before the next change arrived. 'We were growing so fast that the organization could not keep up,' said Adrianne Sullivan-Campeau, chief employee and customer experience officer at CareRx. 'We had teams under the same roof not speaking the same language. It was an us-versus-them situation.' In late 2022, compounded by the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, turnover spiked and customer complaints piled up. At one location, Sullivan-Campeau recalled, a leader from the head office arrived to roll out yet another change, and employees turned them away. ''Leave us alone,' they said. 'We're done.''...

Physical tech is back, at least judging by this week's largest U.S. funding deals. The biggest of all was a $1.5 billion corporate round for a medical device company that develops implants and treatment systems for musculoskeletal disorders. It was followed by an enormous Series A round, backed by a bevy of big-name investors, for Hark, a 1-year-old artificial intelligence startup that says it's developing personalized AI devices. Along with the usual heavy dose of AI, this week's list also includes large deals for aerospace and defense, fintech, and retail technology. Let's dive in. 1. MiRus, $1.5B, healthcare: MiRus raised a massive $1.5 billion corporate round led by Boston Scientific as strategic investors continue betting on next-generation orthopedic and spinal technologies. The Marietta, Georgia-based company has now raised $1.6 billion to date, per Crunchbase. The deal comes with a 34% equity stake for Boston Scientific. 2. Hark, $700M, artificial intelligence: AI startup Hark landed a huge $700 million Series A led by Parkway Venture Capital, with participation from a long list of investors including chip giants Nvidia, Intel Capital, AMD and Qualcomm Ventures, as well as ARK Investment Management, Ventures, Prime Movers Lab, Salesforce Ventures 1 and Align Ventures. The San Jose, California-based company says it's building 'advanced personalized intelligence and next-generation hardware' and plans to release some kind of product later this summer....

Midway into 2026, the most overt attacks on vaccines in the United States have stopped. With the midterm elections looming, the White House reportedly asked Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to quiet his anti-vaccine rhetoric'publicly, at least. But protections against infectious disease are continuing to falter, both domestically and abroad, through sheer neglect. Although the full impact of the U.S.'s disinterest has only started to play out, one effect is already clear: When vaccines' reach is eroded, the poorest, least well-served people feel the brunt of that loss first. Paring back the CDC's national childhood immunization schedule, for instance, has limited more Americans' access to shots; Kennedy's haphazard reconstitution of the nation's top vaccine advisory panel led to that expert group being put on hiatus, imperiling immunizations for children from underinsured families. When the White House dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, accusing the organization of waste and abuse, it compromised efforts to deliver vaccines around the world; when it stopped funding the World Health Organization, citing the group's mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, it put global immunization campaigns at risk. But among the more than half a dozen experts I spoke with for this story, the chief concern was for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the world's largest initiative supporting immunization access in lower-income countries. Since last year, the U.S. has been withholding hundreds of millions in funds from the organization. The U.S. played a vital role in Gavi's founding and has historically been one of its heaviest funders: In 2024, under President Biden, the country pledged nearly $1.6 billion to Gavi, to be meted out over five years. That contribution should have covered roughly 13 percent of the organization's funding through 2030. But the U.S. State Department hasn't sent the $600 million that Congress budgeted for Gavi in fiscal years 2025 and 2026. (If left unused, the funds will expire on September 30; earlier this month, senators from both parties called on the State Department to relinquish the appropriated money to Gavi.)...

The market for AI notetaking devices has exploded in the U.S., with the category generating over $600 million in revenue last year, according to a Menlo Ventures report. And as startups like Heidi Health and Freed have shown, there's decent demand for this tech in healthcare, where doctors and clinics see the potential for an AI assistant that can help them keep track of patient conversations, surface health records, and lower their administrative burdens. But those apps don't do much for patients, which is why Kin Health is building a notetaker that can transcribe your visits to doctors, parse medical advice, and surface next steps when required. To that end, the startup has raised $9 million in a seed funding round led by Maveron. The app is similar to a meeting notetaker: You can record doctor visits, and it will return an AI summary of the meeting, with the next steps, all of which you share with family and friends if you want to. It also lets you write down questions that you might want to ask during your next visit....