Benjamin Linas, MD, MPH, a physician at the Boston Medical Center and associate professor at the school of medicine and public health has done research on the comparative and cost effectiveness of improving the outcome of patients who have been diagnosed with HIV and the hepatitis C virus. The HCV and HIV Core is based at the Boston Medical Center and is led by a team of highly experienced researchers who also happen to be clinicians. These researchers have the advantage of having in depth expertise in understanding the disease processes of both HCV and HIV in substance users.

The specialized clinical services that CHERISH provides its patients has got to do with helping people think about large data sets that contain health economic information that could prove to be useful to people who want to use that information to conduct research studies, but who are unaware of what would be considered the right incentive to work with. The organization also provides simulation modelling services to help people who are looking to work on a budget. The technology that CHERISH provides makes it possible for them to carry out their research in a cost-effective way, while coming up with long-term health projections, by using simulation modelling for HIV.

HIV and Hep C testing in substance abuse treatment programs is an example of the kind of cost effectiveness analysis that is provided by CHERISH that people can take advantage of. The main goal of CHERISH is to provide economic value for clinical trials carried out to find efficient and effective treatment options in these programs. The result is that CHERISH allows the data collected in these clinical trials to be generalizable and carried forward to other substance abuse treatment centers that were not necessarily part of the clinical trial. This allows researchers and trial programs to get a better understanding of who much health benefit they are able to provide their patients on a dollar spent basis. The data that’s collected proves to be useful when it comes to rolling out different programs and treatment interventions that have proven to be effective.