OBJECTIVES: To develop process indicators for assessing the quality of care in the 23 Primary Care Groups (PCGs) of the Local Health Unit (LHU) of Reggio Emilia, Italy, using administrative data. METHODS: Data were extracted from the 2006 Reggio Emilia LHU Healthcare database, including demographic, hospital, outpatient pharmacy, and outpatient specialty data on all residents, as well as information about each LHU General Practitioner (GP). We retrieved information on approximately 450,000 LHU residents and on 343 GPs and their PCG of practice. We included GPs who practiced for the whole year in only one PCG. The sample patient population comprised individuals who were residents in the LHU for the whole year and did not change their GP during the year. Initially developed based on a literature review, the quality indicators were defined jointly by the project team and leaders of the 23 PCGs. For each indicator, we computed the proportion of eligible patients within each PCG who received the recommended care. RESULTS: A total of 340 GPs (99.1%) met the inclusion criteria. These GPs had a total number of 383,772 continuously enrolled patients for 2006. The number of GPs per PCG ranged from 4 to 28 and the number of patients per PCG varied from 3,862 to 30,855. Nine quality care indicators covering cardiovascular, diabetes, and asthma management were identified. Analyses of the indicators exhibited significant variation among the PCGs. For example, the proportion of post-myocardial infarction patients receiving beta-blockers varied from 33.3% to 90.9% across the PCGs. CONCLUSIONS: Quality of care provided by Italy's family physician practices can be assessed using administrative data. For the indicators adopted, study findings showed a considerable variation in medical patterns among PCGs. These results provide LHU policy makers and PCGs with relevant information to establish quality improvement initiatives targeted at the individual practice level.