Outpatient

A person who is getting medical attention, care, or treatment is known as a patient, the term deriving from the Latin word patiens.

Many people come to a hospital to seek treatment for illnesses or conditions that are ongoing. If they stay overnight at a hospital, they become inpatients. However, the cost of keeping a person in a hospital, and the desire of many people to remain at home or with their families, has resulted in a system of outpatients in which people can visit a hospital for regular treatment, further diagnosis, or for the renewal of prescriptions and the like.

Sometimes, outpatients have been referred to a hospital by another medical professional. On other occasions, the patient has already visited a hospital in the past and is returning for continued treatment or further diagnosis. To cater to this, there are inpatient areas at many hospitals to differentiate between inpatients who stay overnight and outpatients who do not. It is also worth observing that many inpatients, on their discharge from a hospital, become outpatients if they require continued hospital care. While the level of treatment or diagnosis for an outpatient at a hospital does not, on occasion, differ significantly from their treatment in a medical center or clinic, the term outpatient is only used at hospitals because medical centers and clinics generally do not have the capacity to keep patients overnight; hence, there is no need for the differentiation. There also exists hospital outpatient care, where ongoing treatment is administered to the patient in his or her own home by hospital staff. This lessens the demand on beds in a hospital, and provides the treatment required, as well as regular supervision.