In The Russian Federation, increasing of life expectancy and decreasing of mortality related to diseases of circulatory system are the priorities of state policy. The purpose of study was to develop approaches to the classification of cardiovascular diseases by severity degree within the framework of development of general health management model based on health care activities at the regional level. The article describes methodology of calculating indices of cardiovascular diseases severity based on statistical data of appealability for out-patient, in-patient and emergency medical care. The set of balancing coefficients reflecting input of rate of accessing for various types of medical care, as well as aggravating input of concomitant pathology, based on expert evaluation of cardiologists involved is presented. On the basis of analysis of distribution of severity index in standard region of the Russian Federation, the system of criteria was developed to classify cardiovascular diseases (according to ICD-10 sub-classes) on four degrees of severity. The approbation of the proposed method demonstrated adequacy of the results obtained to judging of experts (cardiologists). So, in standard region of the Russian Federation, in the class of diseases of circulatory system (I00-I99), 79.6% of all cases are of first degree of severity, 8.6% of cases are of second degree of severity, 3.8% of cases are of third degree, and 8% of cases are of fourth degree. The methodology is unified and can be applied to classify entire spectrum of diseases by degree of severity. Besides, the proposed methodological approaches are suitable to be applied in population health management at the municipal, regional and national levels in the Russian Federation.
Keywords: circulatory system; degree of severity; disease.