Background: Major changes in the roles and responsibilities of pharmacists across the world are occurring. A new Scottish Community Pharmacy contract was introduced in April 2006, following the introduction of a similar contract in England in 2005. This contract encourages greater involvement in...

Parallel trade in pharmaceuticals has become a major European Union policy issue with several `solutions' being considered by the European Commission, Member State governments and the pharmaceutical industry in the `Bangemann Process'. This paper discusses the issues from an economic and public...

Policies consisting of or including prior authorisation (PA) of pharmaceutical prescriptions have been increasingly implemented by public and private insurers in the last decade, especially in the US, in order to control drug spending. We conducted a systematic review of published articles...

The current divisions in managing prescribing between primary and secondary care in the UK arise from separate budgetary arrangements. These divisions are neither sensible, organisationally efficient nor cost effective. Transition of patients across the interface of primary and secondary care...

Background:Background: A recent health reform proposal in South Africa proposes universal access to a comprehensive package of healthcare services in the public sector, through the implementation of a national health insurance (NHI) scheme. Implementation of the scheme is likely to involve the...

This paper investigates the contribution of pharmaceutical innovation to recent longevity growth in Germany and France. The effect of the vintage of prescription drugs (and other variables) on the life expectancy and age-adjusted mortality rates of residents of Germany is examined, using...

Background:Background: We evaluated national rotavirus (RV) immunization programme costs to estimate how resulting changes in morbidity and mortality will influence government fiscal accounts over time. The assumption was that increased childhood survival in vaccinated cohorts leads to increased...

Comparative effectiveness research is expected to play an important role in future clinical and policy decision making in the US; however, the application of comparative effectiveness methodologies to child health requires special attention to aspects of health and healthcare that are specific...