Inpatient refers to a patient who comes to a hospital, skilled nursing facility, or other health care facility for diagnosis or treatment that requires an overnight stay.
Outpatient refers to a patient who is not admitted (there is no overnight stay) to the hospital for emergency department services, observation, surgery, lab tests, x-rays, or any other hospital services. Outpatient is also commonly called ambulatory care.
An Electronic Medical Record (EMR) or Electronic Health Record (EHR) refers to computerized patient health records.
HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 which sets standards for security and privacy of personal health data. HIPAA also ensures that people who lose group health insurance will have access to individual insurance and allows employees to get health insurance from new employers when switching jobs.
The Joint Commission, formerly known as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), is an independent, not-for-profit organization that accredits and certifies nearly 21,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States, focusing on patient safety and quality of care. It is the oldest and largest standards-setting and accrediting body for health care in the US.
Quality Assurance (QA), often called Quality Measures (QM) or Quality Improvement (QI), are programs that help measure or quantify healthcare processes, outcomes, patient perceptions, and organizational structures/systems that are associated with providing high-quality health care and/or that relate to one or more of these quality goals: effective, safe, efficient, patient-centered, equitable, and timely.