Australian health review : a publication of the Australian Hospital Association
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To save costs, the Australian Government recently deferred approval of seven new medicines recommended by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) for up to 7 months. ⋯ Cabinet decisions to defer listing of new medicines delays access to new treatments. This occurred in addition to other longer delays, earlier in the approval process for medicines, resulting in a significant impact on the overall timeliness of listing.
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Health policy making is complex, but can be informed by evidence of what works, including systematic reviews. We aimed to inform the work of the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care (EPOC) Group by identifying systematic review topics relevant to Australian health policy makers and exploring whether existing Cochrane reviews address these topics. ⋯ This survey has identified questions for which Australian policy makers have indicated a need for systematic reviews. Further, it has confirmed that existing reviews do address issues of importance to policy makers, with the potential to inform policy processes.