Project Solo: an independent practitioner initiative for confidential self-assessment of quality

Project Solo, a grassroots organization of independent physicians, has developed a unique method of confidential self-assessment of quality. Participating physicians can use the data to improve their own practices and to have a strong, credible voice for retaining and promoting the strengths of independent practices in providing medical care. In a pilot project, 56 independent physicians in Project Solo were given bar-coded, postage-paid survey forms of patient satisfaction to distribute to 100 patients. The population for this pilot study was the 35 physicians with patients returning at least one survey. A total of 1858 surveys (53% of surveys given to physicians) were returned, representing a variety of rural and urban practices in 19 states. The mean percentage of responses rated "excellent" to survey items from Project Solo physicians is similar to the percentages reported for this survey in other studies. We conclude that Project Solo serves as an effective and efficient model for gathering patient satisfaction data and can be further developed as a tool for gathering clinical outcome and other quality measurement data in the solo and small group practice setting.