Implementing an essential medicines list: effects on pricing and utilization in West Bank, Palestine.

The purpose of this article is to examine the effects of implementing an essential medicines list (EML) on medicine prices, utilization and aggregate cost savings in the public sector of West Bank, Palestine. The Palestinian Ministry of Health (MOH) introduced an EML to contain escalating costs and improve appropriate utilization within the public sector. To assess the effects of the EML implementation, we obtained price and utilization data for 76 medicine groups for 1997-2003. We also collected demographic and economic information for the population living in the catchment areas of the MOH health care facilities. After EML implementation, medicine utilization declined by 1.7 defined daily doses (DDDs) per-capita per year, and prices declined by US $0.0013 per DDD. The aggregate cost savings totaled US $5.38 million. We conclude that the EML implementation was successful in containing medicine costs and should continue to increase savings into the future.