While most health systems in the US treat cancer patients, only 57 facilities have been designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as comprehensive cancer centers, recognized for not only their high standard of care but also the quality of research conducted to discover new treatments.

One of them is part of City of Hope, based in Duarte, California, and led by CEO Robert Stone. City of Hope has one of the only comprehensive cancer centers that’s not affiliated with a university. The health system contributed to the creation of four of the most commonly used cancer-fighting drugs: Herceptin, Erbitux, Rituxan, and Avastin.

Before joining the health system in 1996, Stone was recruited for a position twice, and turned it down twice. When he finally agreed to join as a lawyer in City of Hope’s general counsel office, he promised to stay in the role for three years.

Today, he’s been at City of Hope for 30 years. He’s worked his way up through a handful of positions to become CEO in 2013.

Here’s more on what Stone hopes to accomplish.—MA

After a year of disappointing earnings calls, Q1 2026 finally gave health insurers something to celebrate.

Despite challenges like the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace, major payers like UnitedHealth, Elevance, Humana, CVS’s Aetna, and Cigna surpassed Wall Street’s expectations and largely did a better job managing medical costs than recent quarters. All those payers upped their full-year profit forecasts, too—except Humana, which reaffirmed its adjusted profit forecast but lowered its nonadjusted earnings forecast.

This doesn’t mean any of those payers are out of the woods, though, experts shared.

The performance improvement is a result of plans “aggressively” upping premiums and making “tough portfolio decisions” like narrowing networks, exiting unprofitable areas, and reducing members within Medicare Advantage (MA) and ACA marketplace plans, David Shapiro, general manager and SVP of member experience at healthcare consulting group Press Ganey, told Healthcare Brew over email.

While Q1 was good, it might not be a trend quite yet.—CC

Paging all medical professionals: You should know about recent medical device recalls.

The FDA gets 2+ million reports of deaths, injuries, and malfunctions associated with medical devices annually. The agency categorizes recalls of these devices—which can range from small corrections to requests for products to be destroyed—from Class III (least dangerous) to Class I (most dangerous).

We keep you informed on recent Class I recalls here in our ongoing series: Recall Roundup. Here are April’s.

Bubble, bubble toil and trouble. Certain Streamline Airless System Hemodialysis Bloodlines and B3 Low Volume Bloodlines from B. Braun Medical should only be used if there’s no available alternative, according to a March 19 letter from the company.. B. Braun warned that there’s an elevated risk of small air bubbles accumulating in the line.

See the full list here.—CC

Real jobs, shared through real communities. CollabWORK brings opportunities directly to Healthcare Brew readers—no mass postings, no clutter, just roles worth seeing. Click here to view the full job board.

• RN Director Progressive Care Unit at Doctors Hospital of Augusta
• Manager of Nursing Services - Cardiopulmonary Medical Surgical at Mercy
• Chief Clinical Officer at ChenMed
• Director of Nursing at Incredible Health
• Chief Nursing Officer at Intermountain Health