Medicines in Health Systems Working Toward Universal Health Coverage (Self-Paced)

Many countries are reforming their health systems working toward universal health coverage (UHC). These reforms can be harnessed to increase equity in medicines access, affordability, and appropriate use of medicines. However, they also have the potential to decrease the effectiveness of prescribing and dispensing, increase unnecessary use of medicines, and derail systems from a path toward sustainable universal coverage. To guide health system development with respect to pharmaceuticals, decision makers need to have a conceptual understanding of medicines in health systems; operational staff need detailed, in-depth understanding of key medicines issues and of the policy and management options to address them; system planners and managers need access to data and tools to assess medicines situations and to monitor impacts of changes. Because different actors in the pharmaceutical sector may have competing objectives, all actors must understand the perspectives of others to work toward e