Strategies to improve the availability of medicines in primary health care in brazil: findings and implications

• Autor(a) principal: Mariana Barbosa
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Renata Macedo Nascimento, Marina M Garcia, Francisco de Assis Acurcio, Brian Godman, Augusto Afonso Guerra Junior, Juliana Alvares Teodoro
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFMG
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.2217/cer-2020-0125; http://hdl.handle.net/1843/56592; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8087-7237; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7756-2157; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5880-5261; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6539-6972; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5256-0577; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0210-0721
• topic: Health policy; Health services research; Observational research; Pharmaceuticals; Serviços de saúde - Pesquisa; Produtos Farmaceuticos

Aim: Access to essential medicines is a key component of managing patients in ambulatory care. In 2008, the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, created the Pharmacy Network of Minas (Rede Farmácia de Minas [RFM]) program to improve access to medicines, increasing availability and restructuring the infrastructures. The aim was to assess the current situation, comparing municipalities with and without RFM. Materials & methods: Descriptive survey study, data collected from 2014 July to May 2015. Availability was verified by stock levels. Results: The drug availability index was 61.0%, higher in municipalities with RFM. Most physicians considered the pharmaceutical services as good/very good. The main reasons for medicines shortage were ‘financial transference problems’, ‘insufficient financial resources’ and ‘budget’. Conclusion: Strategies, such as the RFM can promote improvements in medicine availability.