BACKGROUND We studied the characteristics of ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients from a local acute coronary syndrome (ACS) registry in order to find and build an appropriate acute myocardial infarction (AMI) system of care in Jakarta, Indonesia. METHODS Data were collected from the Jakarta Acute Coronary Syndrome (JAC) registry 2008-2009, which contained 2103 ACS patients, including 654 acute STEMI patients admitted to the National Cardiovascular Center Harapan Kita, Jakarta, Indonesia. RESULTS The proportion of patients who did not receive reperfusion therapy was 59% in all STEMI patients and the majority of them (52%) came from inter-hospital referral. The time from onset of infarction to hospital admission was more than 12 h in almost 80% cases and 60% had an anterior wall MI. In-hospital mortality was significantly higher in patients who did not receive reperfusion therapy compared with patients receiving acute reperfusion therapy, either with primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) or fibrinolytic therapy (13.3% vs 5.3% vs 6.2%, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS The Jakarta Cardiovascular Care Unit Network System was built to improve the care of AMI in Jakarta. This network will harmonise the activities of all hospitals in Jakarta and will provide the best cardiovascular services to the community by giving two reperfusion therapy options (PPCI or pharmaco-invasive strategy) depending on the time needed for the patient to reach the cath-lab.