Importance In recent years, a rapid growth in the creation and development of regional medical clusters of various specializations has been observed in Russia. Some experience of organization and functioning of such clusters has been accumulated by now.


Objectives This article aims to analyze and assess the problems of initial development of regional medical clusters in the Russian Federation.


Methods For the analysis and assessment, we used the data from open periodicals and the Internet.


Results The assessment of available materials shows that the problems of the initial stage of development of regional medical clusters can be categorized into groups as organizational, personnel, and evaluation. The most common problems are the lack of personnel and the difficulties of the organization. The article proposes certain directions of solving these problems. The problem of development of criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of medical clusters is separately identified. Also, the article proposes basic quantitative criteria of assessing the efficiency of regional medical clusters on separate types of activity, realized within the cluster.


Conclusions and Relevance The review data can be used to assess the risks and prospects for the creation of new medical clusters. The proposed criteria can be used to assess the effectiveness of existing clusters. Further assessment of the functioning of medical clusters is also necessary in the future to solve the problems of cluster development in medicine.