Articles

Exploring the Impact of health-care cost sharing mechanisms in health service users for all the 27 member countries of the EU

Authors: Andreas Siakou and Costas Athanasakis

Medicines optimisation in Northern Ireland - scope and results of a challenging project

Authors: Mike Scott, Frans van Andel and Rob Brenninkmeijer

The prices outpatients have to pay for purchasing medicines in Armenia

Authors: Irina Kazaryan, Anahit Sevikyan and Margarit Melikyan

Optimising prescribing in primary care: an evaluation of financial and clinical parameters

Authors: Asal Albayati, David Lu, Liam Sergeant, Nandita Singh, Keith Crump and Zaheer-Ud-Din Babar

Prices of oncology medicines in European countries, Australia and New Zealand

Authors: Sabine Vogler, Agnes Vitry and Zaheer Ud-Bin-Babar

Cost-Containment of Non-Formulary Medicines Accessibility: Malaysian Experience

Authors: Nur Liyana Zainal Bahrin, Yahaya Hassan, Abu Bakar Abd Majeed, Nur Wahida Zulkifli and Azlan Ahmad

Socioeconomic determinants of medicines use in Central Eastern Europe: the role of pharmaceutical policy in reducing inequalities

Authors: Sabine Vogler, August Österle and Susanne Mayer

Development of pharmaceutical prices in the Republic of Macedonia in comparison to selected countries outside the national reference baskets

Authors: Kristina Hristova and Claudia Habl

Introduction of generic substitution and reference pricing in Ireland: early effects on state pharmaceutical expenditure and generic penetration, and associated success factors

Authors: Susan Spillane, Cara Usher, Kathleen Bennett, Roisin Adams and Michael Barry

Availability and affordability of medicines for children

Authors: Irina Kazaryan and Lusine Vardanyan

Policy options to deal with high-cost medicines – survey with European policy-makers

Authors: Nina Zimmermann, Sabine Vogler and Hanne Bak Pedersen

Applying Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) in the context of HTA: an experimental case study on metastatic colorectal cancer

Authors: Aris Angelis and Panos Kanavos

Retrospective financial analysis of medicines reimbursement services in community pharmacy

Authors: Elena Chitan

The Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Information (PPRI) network – a decade of exchange of information and policy research?

Authors: Sabine Vogler, Nina Zimmermann and Kees De Joncheere

Impact of delisting OTC medicines from reimbursement list

Authors: Petra Chytilová and Robin Šebesta

Policy cooperation and interface issues

Authors: Sabine Vogler, Nina Zimmermann, Veronika J Wirtz and Zaheer-Ud-Din Babar

Pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement policies: perspectives for the future

Authors: Andrew L Gray

Managing new premium-priced medicines in Europe

Authors: Govin Permanand and Hanne Bak Pedersen

Policies beyond the crisis: lesson learned

Authors: Sabine Vogler, Nina Zimmermann, Veronika J Wirtz and Zaheer-Ud-Din Babar

Impact of Generic Price Linkage System and Reference Price System on prices of pharmaceuticals – comparison of Austria and Finland

Authors: Jaana E Martikainen, Timo Maljanen, Hanna Koskinen and Sabine Vogler

Challenges and opportunities for pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement policies

Authors: Sabine Vogler, Nina Zimmermann, Alessandra Ferrario, Veronika J Wirtz and Zaheer-Ud-Din Babar

Affordable innovation: future directions in pharmaceutical policy

Authors: Suzanne R Hill

Accrediting retail drug shops to strengthen Tanzania’s public health system: an ADDO case study

Retail drug sellers are a major source of health care and medicines in many countries. In Tanzania, drug shops are widely used, particularly in rural and underserved areas. Previously, the shops were allowed t...

Authors: Edmund Rutta, Jafary Liana, Martha Embrey, Keith Johnson, Suleiman Kimatta, Richard Valimba, Rachel Lieber, Elizabeth Shekalaghe and Hiiti Sillo

Policy versus practice: a community-based qualitative study of the realities of pharmacy services in Nunavut, Canada

Nunavut is an Arctic territory in Canada subject to many social, economic and health disparities in comparison to the rest of the nation. The territory is affected by health care provision challenges caused by...

Authors: Sandra J. Romain, Jillian C. Kohler and Kue Young

Access to and quality use of non-communicable diseases medicines in Nepal

Noncommunicable diseases are a major healthcare problem in Nepal and their burden is increasingevery year. Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) bring additional challenges to the Nepalese healthcaresystem which is ...

Authors: Bhuvan K.C., Susan Heydon and Pauline Norris

Parents’ preferences and willingness-to-pay for human papilloma virus vaccines in Thailand

To examine parents’ preferences and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for HPV vaccines.

Authors: Surachat Ngorsuraches, Kornwan Nawanukool, Krittin Petcharamanee and Ungkanit Poopantrakool

Explaining the slow transition of child-appropriate dosage formulations from the global to national level in the context of Uganda: a qualitative study

In 2007, the Sixtieth World Health Assembly (WHA) passed a resolution entitled “Better medicines for children” and subsequently the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended the inclusion of child-appropriat...

Authors: Xavier Nsabagasani, Ebba Hansen, Anthony Mbonye, Freddie Ssengooba, Herbert Muyinda, James Mugisha and Jasper Ogwal-Okeng

Trends in the utilization of antihypertensive medications among Palestine refugees in Jordan, 2008-2012

The purpose of this study is to describe trends in the utilization of antihypertensive medications, overall and by type of medication, specifically thiazide diuretics, as well as uncontrolled hypertension, in ...

Authors: Rawan Saadeh, Dima Qato, Ali Khader, Yousef Shahin and Akihiro Seita

Community pharmacists’ attitudes toward the quality and price of locally manufactured generic medicines in Kabul, Afghanistan

To report the attitudes of community pharmacists in Kabul, Afghanistan, concerning the quality and price of locally manufactured medicines.

Authors: Mohammad Bashaar, Mohamed Azmi Hassali and Fahad Saleem

Availability and utilization of the WHO recommended priority lifesaving medicines for under five-year old children in public health facilities in Uganda: a cross-sectional survey

To explore the availability and utilization of the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended priority life-saving medicines for children under five in public health facilities in Uganda.

Authors: Xavier Nsabagasani, Jasper Ogwal-Okeng, Anthony Mbonye, Freddie Ssengooba, Simon Muhumuza and Ebba Holme Hansen

Utilization of oral antidiabetic medications in Taiwan following strategies to promote access to medicines for chronic diseases in community pharmacies

Taiwan’s National Health Insurance (NHI) has encouraged physicians to use “chronic medication prescriptions” for patients with stable chronic diseases since 1995. Patients are allowed to refill such prescripti...

Authors: Jason C Hsu, Dennis Ross-Degnan, Anita K Wagner, Ching-Lan Cheng, Yea-Huei Kao Yang, Fang Zhang and Christine Y Lu

Tenofovir substitution in Namibia based on an analysis of the antiretroviral dispensing database

In the management of HIV infection, tenofovir is preferred to its predecessors – zidovudine and stavudine – in the antiretroviral therapy (ART) nucleoside backbone. Tenofovir’s (TDF) preference is based on its...

Authors: Francis Kalemeera, Assegid T Mengistu and Johannes Gaeseb

Assessment of a revolving drug fund for essential asthma medicines in Benin

Benin established a revolving drug fund (RDF) for essential asthma medicines in 2008. We evaluated the operation of the RDF and assessed whether there was interruption of supply of asthma medicine from 2008 to...

Authors: Gildas Agodokpessi, Nadia Aït-Khaled, Martin Gninafon, Leon Tawo, Wilfried Bekou, Christophe Perrin, Karen Bissell, Nils Billo, Donald A Enarson and Chen-Yuan Chiang

The reality of task shifting in medicines management- a case study from Tanzania

Tanzania suffers a severe shortage of pharmaceutical staff. This negatively affects the provision of pharmaceutical services and access to medicines, particularly in rural areas. Task shifting has been propose...

Authors: Karin A Wiedenmayer, Ntuli Kapologwe, James Charles, Fiona Chilunda and Siana Mapunjo

Knowledge and perceptions of physicians from private medical centres towards generic medicines: a nationwide survey from Malaysia

Generic medicine prescribing has become a common practice in public hospitals. However, the trend in private medical centres seems to be different. The objective of this study was to investigate knowledge, per...

Authors: Rohit Kumar, Mohamed Azmi Hassali, Fahad Saleem, Alian A Alrasheedy, Navneet Kaur, Zhi Yen Wong and Muhamad Ali SK Abdul Kader

Farmácia Popular Program: changes in geographic accessibility of medicines during ten years of a medicine subsidy policy in Brazil

The Brazilian constitution guarantees the right to health, including access to medicines. In May 2004, Brazil’s government announced the “Farmácia Popular” Program (FPP) as a new mechanism to improve the Brazilia...

Authors: Isabel Cristina Martins Emmerick, José Miguel do Nascimento Jr, Marco Aurélio Pereira, Vera Lucia Luiza and Dennis Ross-Degnan

Pharmaceutical supply chain risk assessment in Iran using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and simple additive weighting (SAW) methods

Pharmaceutical supply chain is a significant component of the health system in supplying medicines, particularly in countries where main drugs are provided by local pharmaceutical companies. No previous studie...

Authors: Mona Jaberidoost, Laya Olfat, Alireza Hosseini, Abbas Kebriaeezadeh, Mohammad Abdollahi, Mahdi Alaeddini and Rassoul Dinarvand

Medicines and universal health coverage: challenges and opportunities

Authors: Maryam Bigdeli, Richard Laing, Göran Tomson and Zaheer-Ud-Din Babar

Uptake of new antidiabetic medications in three emerging markets: a comparison between Brazil, China and Thailand

New antidiabetic medications such as insulin analogues and thiazolidinediones have been introduced over the last decade. This study compares the uptake of new agents in three emerging pharmaceutical markets: B...

Authors: Christine Y Lu, Isabel Cristina M Emmerick, Peter Stephens, Dennis Ross-Degnan and Anita K Wagner

Patient access schemes in Asia-pacific markets: current experience and future potential

Patient access (or risk-sharing) schemes are alternative market access agreements between healthcare payers and medical product manufacturers for conditional coverage of promising health technologies. This stu...

Authors: Christine Y Lu, Caitlin Lupton, Shana Rakowsky, Zaheer-Ud-Din Babar, Dennis Ross-Degnan and Anita K Wagner

Pharmaceutical Policy Part 2 Pharmaceutical engagement and policy development: a framework for influence

The formulation of pharmaceutical policy is a critical component of healthcare planning, made more important given that medicines are the ubiquitous technology in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of dis...

Authors: Norman C Morrow

Pharmaceutical policy Part 1 The challenge to pharmacists to engage in policy development

Across the world medicines are the ubiquitous technology in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease. Pharmaceutical policy, as part of national health care policy, is concerned with the provision an...

Authors: Norman C Morrow

What variables should be considered in allocating Primary health care Pharmaceutical budgets to districts in Uganda?

A key policy question for the government of Uganda is how to equitably allocate primary health care pharmaceutical budgets to districts. This paper seeks to identify variables influencing current primary healt...

Authors: Paschal N Mujasi and Jaume Puig-Junoy

The “child size medicines” concept: policy provisions in Uganda

In 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the ‘make medicines child size’ (MMCS) campaign by urging countries to prioritize procurement of medicines with appropriate strengths for children’s age an...

Authors: Xavier Nsabagasani, Jasper Ogwal-Okeng, Anthony Mbonye, Freddie Ssengooba, Rebecca Nantanda, Herbert Muyinda and Ebba Holme Hansen

Treatment of Febrile illness with artemisinin combination therapy: prevalence and predictors in five African household surveys

To evaluate the determinants of compliance with national policies recommending Artemisinin Combination Therapy (ACT) for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria in the community.

Authors: Catherine E Vialle-Valentin, Robert F LeCates, Fang Zhang and Dennis Ross-Degnan

Pilot projects empower district supply chain management staff to strengthen health services in Indonesia

Authors: Setiawan Suparan, Ketut Adnyana, Ivan Surya Pradipta, Nani Sukasediati and Prihatiwi Setiati

Strengthened human resources in health logistics in Nepal

Authors: Heem S Shakya, Aneeva Shakya, Umesh K Gupta and Mingmar G Sherpa

Creating the humanitarian professional: moving from certification to advocacy and endorsement

Authors: George Fenton, Chris Wright and Becky Turner

Embedding problem solving and use of data with routine supply chain procedures: District leadership and team-based approaches improve product availability in Rwanda

Authors: Alexis Heaton, Amanda Ombeva, Deogratias Leopold, Golbert Kazoza, Patrick Nganji, Cathy Mugeni, Megan Noel and Yasmin Chandani

A business approach to transforming public health supply systems

Authors: Ellen T Tompsett, Alan Bornbush, Todd Dickens, Carolyn Hart and Chris Wright