Coronary heart disease registers: Lessons from 'have a heart Paisley'

Computerised disease registers act as central repositories for data from different locations. They contain information about people within circumscribed populations who have a common characteristic. Disease registers offer significant potential benefits for public health, in particular the capacity to provide population-based analyses of treatment processes and outcomes. They can also be used by individual practices to audit care. Although disease registers are associated with many health benefits, data protection legislation can present major barriers to their implementation. This article describes the strategy used in Paisley to achieve effective population-wide CHD monitoring while protecting the individual's right to privacy.