Quality of chronic care in general practices in Salzburg, Austria, and South Tyrol, Italy: a comparative process of care intervention study.

Background: Quality indicators to assess the quality of primary care have only been applied on a national or regional level in European countries, and there have been no comparisons between regions of different countries. In the interventional pre-post-study "Improvement of Quality by Benchmarking - IQuaB" (level of evidence: 3), we aimed to improve and compare quality of process care in 57 participating general practices in Salzburg, Austria, and South Tyrol, Italy.

Methods: The intervention consisted of self-audit, benchmarking and quality circles.