"A lack of information keeps us from medicine, well-being, harmony…": a mixed method study with plaintiffs requesting medicines in administrative cases.

The need to request public health managers to ensure the right of access to medicines characterizes an administrative case and the method to do so is called the administrative route. This mixed method study aimed to analyze the perceptions of plaintiffs requesting medications by the administrative route about barriers to access medicines in the Brazilian public health sector. Data were gathered through focus groups and questionnaires.

The role of VES-13 to identify limited life expectancy in older adults in primary healthcare settings.

Objective: To investigate the potential role of the Vulnerable Elders Survey to identify older adults with limited life expectancy in primary healthcare settings.

Method: This cross-sectional study was performed in all (nine) healthcare units in Jatai, Goiás (Brazil) from July to December 2018. A sample size of 407 older adults was obtained considering an older population (≥ 60 years old).

Institutional strategies as a mechanism to rationalize the negative effects of the judicialization of access to medicine in Brazil.

Background: Recently, the Executive Branch and Judiciary in Brazil increased spending due to larger numbers of lawsuits that forced the State to provide health goods and services. This phenomenon, known as health judicialization, has created challenges and required the Executive Branch and Judiciary to create institutional strategies such as technical chambers and departments to reduce the social, economic and political distortions caused by this phenomenon. This study aims to evaluate the effects of two institutional strategies deployed by a Brazilian municipality in order to cope with the economic, social and political distortions caused by the phenomenon of health judicialization regarding access to medicines.

Administrative cases: an effective alternative to lawsuits in assuring access to medicines?

Background: Although public policy in Brazil supports access to essential medicines, the health system cannot meet all demand. Increasingly, the population has used legal demands to seek access to medicines, an approach that can undermine equitable access by creating policy inconsistencies (e.g.