Lucrative partnerships boost two publishers' non-subscription revenue.

In this time of mailing list fatigue, economic doldrums, and competition from the internet, newsletter and specialized information publishers are looking more and more to finding new revenue from ancillary products and services. Two recent shining examples come from HCPro Corporation in Massachusetts

Kaiser Permanente chooses HCPro as partner in training program

HCPro's online learning division, HCProfessor, has been selected to provide medical privacy compliance training to employees of America's largest not-for-profit health maintainance organization nationwide. HCProfessor will provide content for Kaiser Permanente to train all staff members for HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) privacy compliance by April 14, 2003, when the rule creating federal privacy rights for personal health information is scheduled to take effect.

Oakland, California-based Kaiser Permanente has 127,000 employees, and 11,000 physicians. It serves 8.4 million members in nine states and the District of Columbia.

HCPro launched its online learning division, HCProfessor (www.hcprofessor.com) in June 2001. There are now more than 100 HCProfessor courses online in such topics as HIPAA compliance, Joint Accreditation Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' (JCAHO) pain management standards, JCAAHO medical staff standards, and Medicare billing compliance.

HCPro's John Novack told NL/NL, "Our e-learning product line is based heavily on our newsletter titles. We never would have launched HIPAA e-learning courses, for example, without having our core health management newsletters as the underpinnings, for content and for credibility."

HCPro is a leading publisher and educator on regulatory and compliance issues faced by hospitals, home health organizations, nursing homes, physicians' offices, and other health care facilities. Established in 1986, HCPro is the parent company of Opus Communications, its newsletter and book division, and The Greeley Company, a health care consulting and educational services firm.

200 Hoods Lane, Marblehead, MA 01945, 781-639-1872, fax 781-6392982, www.hcpro.com

Infocom Group partnerships now account for 25 percent of its annual revenue

The Infocom Group's Bulldog Reporter, a media placement newsletter for public relations professionals, recently formed a partnership with Burrelle's Information Services to combine services for media contacts and pitch tips. The partnership puts Burrelle's 60,000 media outlets and 30,000 contacts together with Bulldog Reporter's "Pitching Tips," which are based on interviews with reporters.

Infocom president Jim Sinkinson told NL/NL that the Burrelle's partnership is one of many they've made. "We have recently licensed the qualitative journalist pitching information (Pitching Tips) and the contact data from our print directory--The National PR Pitch Book--to Burrelle's, PR Newswire, and Vocus, all online PR services, all of which offer an online directory service.

"We also have a licensing agreement with Public Affairs Technology and CornerBarPR," Sinkinson continued. "These licensing agreements now make up about 25 percent of our annual revenue--a huge boost, especially in the aftermath of the recession.

"From a PR standpoint, these agreements make Bulldog Reporter's Pitching Tips the recognized coin of the realm in the PR industry when it comes to pitching intelligence," Sinkinson said. "We offer some 22,000 Pitching Tips on the nation's most influential journalists, enabling PR people to research what individual journalists want before they pitch them, thus dramatically increasing their chances of success in placing stories."

(Just this week, NL/NL received a glossy brochure from PR Newswire with the announcement, "Join us for an online demo and we'll show you how Pitching(tm) from Bulldog Reporter make Online MEDIAtals(tm) the best media database available today.")

Sinkinson said that subscribers pay an annual fee, which gives them access to the tips when they sign on to the service. "Access is always via the web," he said, "except for Public Affairs Technology's product, prPowerBase, which is CD-ROM-based."

5900 Hollis Ave., #R2, Emery Wile, CA 94608, 510-596-93000, fax 510-596-9331, www.infocomgroup.com