The Joint Commission has released a new report tracking patient safety and quality performance. Overall, hospitals have made improvement, but there are wide variations between specific treatments and improvement rates among states.

The report also singles out surgical "time outs" as an area that needs improvement. Reading the data for time outs can be difficult, because it isn't clear whether the lack of improvement is due to worse performance or an increase in reporting. The same is true for the use of prohibited abbreviations.

During a press conference Tuesday, Joint Commission President Dennis O'Leary expressed frustration that there has not been better improvement in surgical time outs.

"This is an area of significant frustration. The lack of compliance may be just because we're seeing increased reporting of it, but this is an occurrence that should never happen," said O'Leary.

Overall, hospitals improved most in areas where previous compliance was low. Improving on treatments that were already widely used proved more difficult. The variation between states was considerable, and most hospitals were at 90% compliance in only one of the 30 measures reviewed in the report.