The online ratings, published by the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center, are based on patient surveys collected by the government's Hospital Consumer Assessments of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey, known as HCAHPS. The data will be available to consumers in an interface with Consumer Reports ratings.

Subscribers to www.ConsumerReportsHealth.org will be able to access the hospital ratings.

According to Consumer Reports, a team of statisticians and health experts analyzed the government data to develop the ratings. The Health Ratings Center integrated intensity of care rankings, linking patient satisfaction and intensity of care; hospitals that have above-average patient satisfaction ratings provide, on average, a more conservative (and less expensive) type of medical care.

The intensity of care rankings are based on data from the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care and the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.

"Intensity of care is a critical part of the equation for consumers because it has many implications – if you land in a hospital that is aggressive, that will mean frequent diagnostic tests and doctor visits, more reliance on specialists instead of primary care doctors, prolonged hospital stays, more days in the ICU and higher out-of-pocket expenditures, without necessarily improving outcomes," said John Santa, MD, director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center.

Santa said Consumer Reports' new ratings demonstrate substantial differences in quality of care across the country, including a link between patient satisfaction and intensity of care.

"Our colleagues at Dartmouth have found that patients who live in regions with more intense care – longer hospitalizations and more doctor visits – rate the quality of care lower, and vice versa," said Santa.

He noted that when Consumer Reports culled a list of U.S. teaching hospitals – specifically, those teaching hospitals that are rated significantly above the national average and those that are significantly below average – a similar pattern emerged.

"Some of the teaching hospitals that got high marks were also among the ones with more conservative care," said Santa.

Some examples of teaching hospitals that rose to the top of CR's Patient Ratings, which also provide more conservative care, are Gunderson Lutheran Medical Center (LaCrosse, Wis.), Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital (Lebanon, N.H.), University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics (Madison, Wis.) and the University of North Carolina Hospital (Chapel Hill, N.C.).

Some examples of teaching hospitals that fell to the bottom of CR's Patient Ratings, which also provide more aggressive care, are Mount Sinai Medical Center (Miami Beach, Fla.), Long Island College Hospital (Brooklyn, N.Y.), Caritas Health Care (Elmhurst, N.Y.), Brooklyn Hospital Center at Downtown Campus (Brooklyn, N.Y.) and Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center (Bronx, N.Y.).