How does the operation of PHARMAC's 'Community Exceptional ...

emergency or last chance situations. Specific examples to illustrate each
category of health rationing are presented.
The international attempts to ration involve significant projects and references to
New Zealand as a leader in this process and for this reason I have given
international comparisons. Finally, the subject of social inequality is discussed
because this was a primary purpose for the health reforms which established
PHARMAC as a Crown Agency.
Literature Search Strategy
A literature search was conducted utilising AUT Library access to Proquest
database and conducting a Boolean Search using 3 search strings of words.
These were:
1. Health AND rationing AND fairness AND “New Zealand
2. Rawls AND Sen fairness AND equity AND Health
3. “Decision Making” AND criteria AND “New Zealand” AND
Pharmaceuticals AND PHARMAC AND Exceptional Circumstances
This search strategy produced peer reviewed journal articles, books with
relevant chapters, theses and national and international government reports.
Assistance for the construction and activation of the search of this topic was
provided by the AUT Postgraduate Librarian, Robyn Ramage and AUT Faculty
of Health and Environmental Sciences Librarian, Andrew South.
During the course of the research and writing of the thesis a literature watch
was activated (again with the assistance of librarians). This consisted of RSS,
and Bloglines and a set up on the TicToc Website. The export RSS feeds were
set up to watch for the following journals on my reader;
- Health (1363-4593)
- Health economics (1057-9230)
- Health economics, policy and law (1744-1331)
- Health policy (0168-8510)
- Policy studies (0144-2872)
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