OBJECTIVES: to identify the pharmaceutical and medical innovations that contributed mostly to the improvement of Greek population health status during the last three decades, according to physicians’ views. METHODS: Building on the methodology by Fuchs and Sox, a questionnaire based survey was conducted on a representative sample of 500 Greek internists and general practitioners aged ≥ 50 years old. The study questionnaire was formulated by a panel of experts, with the use of the Delphi method and included one list of 22 pharmaceutical and a second list of 20 medical innovations. Physicians were asked to identify the seven more important and seven least important innovations, with regard to their impact on patients’ health status. RESULTS: Response rate was 78%. The seven most important pharmaceutical innovations reported were Angiotensin Converting Enzyme (ACE)  inhibitors and angiotensin II antagonists, inhaled steroids and β2-agonists, statins, proton pump inhibitors and Η2-antagonists, novel antibiotics, antiviral drugs for hepatitis Β and C and calcium channel blockers. The seven most important technological innovations  were: magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography scanning (CT), balloon angioplasty with stents, Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG), gastrointestinal endoscopy, Human Immunodeficiency Virus testing, mammography and Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) testing. In both cases, innovations that ranked higher were used to treat high-prevalence diseases with a significant contribution on the burden of disease for the Greek population. In addition, innovations that contributed to improvements in disease diagnoses and management were also ranked higher. CONCLUSIONS: the epidemiological profile of the population, the effectiveness of each innovation in terms of clinical effectiveness as well as health-related quality of life, and the utility of the innovation in everyday clinical practice constitute important determinants of the physicians’ opinions regarding the relative importance of medical innovations on the health status of the Greek population.