Month: April 2011

If shareholders and regulators approve Accuray's $277 million purchase of TomoTherapy, chief executive officer Fred Robertson will be out of a job, but he stands to gain an exit package worth $4.7 million. Plus, Robertson owns nearly 600,000 shares of TomoTherapy stock, worth about $2.75 million. Together, they total about $7.5 million for the physician and former anesthesiology professor turned businessman. (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 4/21)

Reflecting a dramatic shift from institutional care for patients with mental illness, Milwaukee County would replace its outmoded Mental Health Complex with a scaled-down version costing up to $100 million in construction and interest costs, under a preliminary plan unveiled Tuesday. The new complex would serve about 120 patients, fewer than half the number now cared for at the sprawling 1970s structure on the County Grounds. The expectation of fewer patients is based on a likely move to more community care and efforts to reduce the need for psychiatric hospitalizations. (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 4/20)

DaVita Inc., a Denver-based kidney dialysis company, leased 10,450 square feet for a new location in Greenfield and is seeking space for three additional sites throughout the area. (MILWAUKEE BUSINESS JOURNAL, 4/20)

Medical device maker Smith & Nephew Inc. is recalling more products made by the Triad Group Inc. of Wisconsin, saying they could be contaminated with potentially dangerous bacteria. The new recall includes two types of products: wipes used to protect the skin before medical tapes and films are applied, and adhesive removers that can clean residues from the skin, according to the firm. The products, including UNI-SOLVE Adhesive Remover Wipes, are widely used by diabetics and others who require daily medication. (MSNBC, 4/19)

Most people would rather die at home, surrounded by loved ones, than in a hospital, attached to tubes and monitors. And a new report by the Dartmouth Atlas Project shows that those Milwaukee hospitals are part of an emerging trend to heed patients' preferences for the care they receive in their last days. (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 4/19)

A village hall packed with about 170 people offered a large measure of support and a few suggestions to U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan on Monday at the first of 19 listening sessions on his plans for massive spending cuts and wholesale changes to Medicare. (MILWAKUEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 4/19)

The team of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel journalists who chronicled the quest by doctors to save a boy by searching his DNA for clues to a mysterious illness was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting on Monday. Through words, photos, graphics and videos, the team produced "One in a Billion: A boy's life, a medical mystery." The three-part series told the story of 5-year-old Nicholas Volker, who was afflicted by a baffling condition that attacked his gut. After searching textbooks and medical journals for clues, doctors and researchers at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin and the Medical College of Wisconsin pushed the frontiers of medicine by sequencing the boy's DNA. (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 4/19)