Sale of NightHawk Radiology approved; no word yet on CDA jobs

A Minnesota company on Wednesday officially bought NightHawk Radiology, once one of North Idaho’s fast-rising tech firms.

Virtual Radiologic’s purchase of NightHawk was approved Wednesday as shareholders voted to take the offer of $6.50 per share or about $170 million. Both companies provide teleradiology services, using doctors in a number of dispersed time zones who remotely look at medical images and provide quick readings of those tests for doctors, clinics and hospitals.

Virtual Radiologic Vice President of Marketing Les Mann also said it’s unclear what will occur with the remaining 70 NightHawk employees working in Coeur d’Alene. Those are the remaining workers who stayed in North Idaho after the company moved the NightHawk main office to Scottsdale, Ariz., earlier this year. Nationwide NightHawk has about 300 positions.

“That question (about NightHawk jobs) is in the to-be-determined category,” Mann said. The evaluation of which jobs need to be in Idaho or Minnesota will start after the first of the year, he added.

With the merger the company now has about 325 radiologists, and about 75 percent of those are subspecialists, Mann said.