YEREVAN, Armenia — On September 18, the American University of Armenia (AUA) Turpanjian College of Health Sciences hosted a special seminar for students in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program titled “Patient Safety Starts with Nursing: Understanding Quality Indicators in Healthcare.” The event featured Dr. Nancy A. Barsamian, assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Chan School of Medicine, founding member of the Nursing Global Health Pathway, and adjunct professor at AUA.
The Akian Art Gallery was alive with a room full of nurses from various hospitals across Yerevan, reflecting the profession’s growing commitment to advancing patient safety and care quality. Simultaneous Armenian translation was provided to ensure wide accessibility and engagement.
Dr. Barsamian’s presentation highlighted the critical role of professional nurses in safeguarding patients and improving healthcare outcomes. She emphasized how nursing quality indicators — such as rates of patient falls, medication errors, and hospital-acquired infections — serve as essential benchmarks for evaluating safety and care standards. Drawing on international frameworks, including the Donabedian model of healthcare quality, Dr. Barsamian underscored the importance of standardized procedures, effective communication, and evidence-based nursing practices.
The session included a case study on patient falls, illustrating both the risks and preventable strategies in clinical settings. Dr. Barsamian also discussed the challenges nurses face, including staffing shortages and workload demands, while calling for greater investment in nurse wellbeing, simulation-based training, and hospital administration support to nurses.
The audience showed a high level of engagement with the topic and asked questions based on the challenges they encountered in their daily practice. Dr. Barsamian advised the nurses to “always collect data and identify the root cause for every clinical or process problem” they identify. The seminar was thought-provoking and highly relevant, sharing “practical tools and strategies that can support patient care improvement efforts,” as stated by one of the participating nurses.
This seminar marks another step in AUA’s commitment to strengthening nursing education and advancing healthcare quality in Armenia through global expertise and local engagement.
The AUA Turpanjian College of Health Sciences works actively to improve population health and health services in Armenia and the region through interdisciplinary education and development of health professionals to be leaders in public health, nursing, health services research and evaluation, and health care delivery and management.
