In the era of evidence-based medicine, the monitoring of the adherence to the guidelines is fundamental, in order to verify the diagnostic and therapeutic processes. Informatic paperless databases allow a higher data quality, lower costs and timely analysis with overall advantages over the traditional surveys. The RUTA project (acronym of Triveneto Registry of ANMCO CCUs) was designed in 1999, aiming at creating an informatic network among the coronary care units of a large Italian region, for a permanent survey of patients admitted for acute myocardial infarction. Information ranges from the pre-hospital phase to discharge, including all relevant clinical and management variables. The database uses DBMS Personal Oracle and Power-Builder as user interface, on Windows platform. Anonymous data are sent to a central server.