Impact of medicine shortages on patients - a framework and application in the Netherlands

Abstract Background Medicine shortages are often described in plain numbers, suggesting all shortages have a uniform impact. However, some shortages have a direct and serious effect on patients and need a prompt reaction from stakeholders. This study aims to create a broad framework to assess the impact of a shortage. Method We identified high impact shortages and selected exemplary shortages which we considered our learning cases. From five learning cases, we identified elements that had a potentially profound impact on one or more of these cases. We tested data saturation on the elements wit... Mehr ...