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Ministry of Health
Healthcare management and therapeutics are highly dynamic fields, with new approaches, treatment protocols and therapeutic products entering the market on a continuous basis. Providing comprehensive healthcare services to the population requires heavy investments, which constitute a major and ever-increasing cost to governments, households and individuals. Therefore, effective mechanisms are needed to prioritize the various health interventions and products, in order to maximize therapeutic benefits and optimize patient outcomes. Such mechanisms must be anchored on the best available scientific evidence of cost-effectiveness, in order to objectively guide investment decisions. In this regard, clinical management guidelines, national formularies and essential medicines lists should be developed to guide and standardize healthcare delivery and these should be regularly updated to keep pace with best practice, and to optimize investments in healthcare. The Kenya Essential Medicines List was last revised and produced in 2010, but there was no effective mechanism for promoting and monitoring its use, and for subsequent regular review and revision. Consequently, this important guide to best practice in medicines selection became progressively outdated and consequently its relevance and usefulness in the health sector gradually diminished.