QA

QUALITY ASSURANCE
Defining “quality” has proved to be one of the more frustrating efforts of modern management. Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) has attempted to provide new terminology to nail down a program that both promotes and measures quality in health care institutions.

•  consists of that “part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled.” The confidence provided by quality assurance is twofold—internally to management and externally to customers, government agencies, regulators, certifiers, and third parties.

Quality Control 
Relies heavily on quantitative statistical methods that focus on the final product, as defined by standards set by the producer. 
Quality Assurance 
It is the planned or systematic actions necessary to provide enough confidence that a product or service will satisfy the given requirements for quality. It was developed out of the limitations of the QC approach and defined quality in health care institutions by the success of the total organization in achieving the goals of patient care.
Total Quality Management
In a TQM effort, all members of an organization participate in improving processes, products, services, and the culture in which they work. 
Continuous Quality Improvement
 It is a process of creating an environment in which management and workers strive to create constantly improving quality.

Quality Assessment and Improvement/Continuous Performance Improvement
It incorporates the concepts of quality assurance and TQM/CQI, especially the idea that quality is a continuous process of improving the system, not just an end point measurement, and that it requires the direct support and active participation  of the leadership of the organization. Quality assessment and improvement focuses on the success of the organization in designing and meeting set goals and objectives hence the term:
“continuous performance improvement”.