Nine years ago, Sarah Fouquet's son Noah was born blue and not breathing. He was immediately whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit.

Fouquet soon learned that Noah had a life-threatening heart defect and needed to be life-flighted to Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.

The first-time mom, 19, wasn't well enough to be discharged yet. She was scared and alone as she said goodbye to her baby and family.

During shift change, a new physician came in and asked a series of questions about Noah, at one point asking where he was and if she had given him up for adoption.

“In shock, I looked at him and said, ‘No, he’s with the cardiologists at CMH,’” she says. “He apologized, left the room, and I never saw him again.”

That experience left Fouquet wondering what had happened. Where did this important piece of information get lost? Did the doctor before him not explain the situation? What sort of handoff process was involved?

After six weeks, including open-heart surgery and the warning that Noah may suffer long-term brain injury, the family returned home.

A few months later, Fouquet was back in school at Wichita State University. Noah continued to grow into a healthy child with no developmental issues, and in 2010, Fouquet graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

Improving the system

Spurred on by her experience after Noah’s birth, Fouquet continued with school, entering WSU’s Human Factors doctoral program that fall (she gave birth to a healthy daughter that semester, as well).

“I wanted to focus on health care, as it had become a major part of our life, and I felt like my experiences could be used to improve the health care system,” she says.

Since starting in the program, Fouquet has pushed to do as much health care research as possible, studying the impact of interruptions on hospital workflow.

She has worked on a grant with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas on patient handoffs to help avoid similar situations, and she has collaborated with Children’s Mercy on multiple projects, including her current dissertation on physician workflow and documentation.

“It was immensely satisfying to be able to feel like I was giving back to the place that gave my son the utmost care,” she says. “I cannot express how gratifying it has been to work with CMH.”

So far, Fouquet’s research has demonstrated that patient handoffs involve a lot of information transfer and that physicians have certain expectations and personal preferences for how much, and how, information is handed off.

She has also shown that this area of research is lacking in empirically derived evidence, underscoring the importance of such this research.

Fouquet would like to also study how patient handoffs occur when technology is introduced, specifically those that are completely electronic.

Once she graduates next spring, Fouquet hopes to work in the health care field as a human factors expert, exploring career options with electronic medical record companies and outside consulting firms that work with health care leaders.

As for now, Noah and his little sister Savannah can be heard running around the fourth floor of Jabara Hall while Fouquet continues her work.