World Journal of
Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences

IMPACTS OF INTRODUCING FEES FOR EVALUATION PROCEDURE OF MEDICAL DEVICES AND CONSUMABLES IN JORDAN ROYAL MEDICAL SERVICES

Mohammad G. Al-Sharayri* and Mohammad S. Al-Jariri Al-hussan

ABSTRACT

Background: Most new innovative health technologies are costly and have a high impact on the budgets. Therefore, many healthcare organizations, including the Jordan Royal Medical Services (JRMS), apply a certain process for evaluating new medical devices (MDs) and medical consumables (MCs) in order to assess and compare the new medical technologies with the existing alternatives. The evaluation procedure in JRMS was a free of charge process before 2023. Since the beginning of 2023, the JRMS started to charge the suppliers a fee for the evaluation procedure in order to regulate and control this process. This decision had an impact on the quantity and quality of evaluations. Aim: To measure the impact of introducing fees for the process of evaluating MDs and MCs in JRMS in terms of quantity and quality of the applied evaluations. In addition, to highlight the potential benefits and drawbacks related to this decision from the perspective of JRMS. Methods: The study was conducted in the Directorate of pharmacy and medical supply /division of medical consumables supply in the JRMS, Amman, Jordan. In this study, the researchers measured the number of the evaluations applied for MDs and MCs in JRMS for two time intervals, two years (2021 and 2022) before introducing fees for the process of evaluation and two years after (2023 and 2024). In addition, the researchers assessed the quality of evaluations in both intervals by assuming that only good quality evaluations succeeded to accomplish the evaluation process in the JRMS. Results: In JRMS, the evaluations applied for MDs and MCs fell by 30% after introducing fees for the process of evaluation. Conversely, the percentage of evaluations accomplished successfully after introducing the fees improved from 37% to 62% of the total evaluations applied. Conclusions: Although fees may act as a barrier to service utilization, it could be associated with service quality improvements. In JRMS, the drop in the number of evaluation files submitted after introducing fees may reveal the actual need of companies to be involved in the process; yet, the quality of service was affected positively.

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