The Center for Strategic HIV Operations Research (CSHOR): Strengthening Health Care Systems through Operations Research
Despite increasing resources for the prevention and treatment of HIV, financial and capacity constraints persist and require a means to optimize efficiency and minimize costs. Operations research can be applied to the field of public health to address the complex nature of health systems and their limitations in countries with high disease burdens and scarce resources.
The Clinton Foundation launched CSHOR in response to direct appeals from CHAI’s partner countries for assistance with resource planning and allocation within their HIV treatment programs. Funded through a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CSHOR develops and applies quantitative, data-driven tools and analyses to assist governments and program managers to make decisions, optimize resources, and overcome barriers to delivery of high- quality care in resource-limited settings.
About CSHOR
CSHOR builds innovative and quantitative decision support tools and assists clinics, governments, and international organizations in using the tools to help guide efficient utilization of limited health resources. Recent CSHOR activities have included:
- Development of decision support models for HIV treatment, including SIMCLIN, a detailed simulation of an HIV clinic
- Application of these support tools resource-limited settings to provide quantitative evidence for clinic managers to make more informed decisions around resource requirements such as antiretroviral drugs, laboratory tests, and human resources
- Forecasting of demand for HIV and malaria drugs using proprietary tools, including GLOPRO for global antiretroviral projections and GFx for prediction of Global Fund grant disbursements
- Analysis of nutrition interventions, health worker training requirements, and barriers to global HIV treatment scale-up
- Fostered a global consortium of operations researchers, public health practitioners and government officials, and led a collaborative effort to define the emerging field of global health operations research
CSHOR’s four specialized teams work together to develop and apply decision-support tools and policy analyses that identify better answers to difficult problems.
- Model Development Team
Develops decision-support tools based on mathematical models - Country Operations Team
Works directly with governments and partners to develop and apply solutions to their specific challenges - Policy Analysis Team
Analyzes the impact of alternative cross-cutting policy choices using decision-support tools and available data - Monitoring and Evaluation Team
Works with partner governments to assess the impact of interventions on the health system and to improve data management systems
For more information on CSHOR’s work and for access to some of their models, visit CSHOR.ORG
PROFILE
In November 2006, the Clinton Foundation mourned the loss of an incredibly giving, dedicated, and passionate volunteer killed while serving people living with HIV/AIDS in Lesotho.