Emerald Archiving closes doors

After nearly 15 years in the PACS archive outsourcing business, Emerald Archiving is calling it quits. The company officially closed its doors in December. Emerald provided backfile image conversion services to help PACS customers make the transition from film to DICOM and to migrate from an existing archive to a new archive. Despite having worked with two dozen hospitals across the U.S., as well as some sites in Canada and Italy, the company was never able to turn a profit and ultimately ran out of money, according to former president and CEO Joe Friedman.

"The PACS market is going forward a lot more slowly than people expected, and we didn't have the financial backing to 'stay the course,'" he said. "But I still believe this is a valid concept and there is an opportunity for someone to have a viable company."