How IPIC Helps
Medical decisions often arise during moments of uncertainty — when information is evolving, outcomes are unclear, and the personal stakes feel high. People may be asked to make choices while still absorbing new information, adjusting expectations, and navigating emotional strain.
IPIC helps individuals, families, and professionals make sense of these moments by providing thoughtful, structured guidance focused on understanding, alignment, and perspective.
Decisions That Endure Rest on Two Foundations
Decisions that feel steadier over time — and are less likely to be associated with regret — tend to rest on two interconnected elements:
Clear understanding
Making sense of the options, tradeoffs, and uncertainty involved in a decision.
Emotional Alignment
Clarifying what matters most — values, priorities, and tolerance for risk — and mapping choices to those priorities.
IPIC’s work centers on supporting both.
What IPIC Does
IPIC provides consultative decision support, working alongside — not in place of — treating clinicians and existing care teams.
Specifically, IPIC helps by:
Clarifying what decision is being faced
What is known, what remains uncertain, and what choices are realistically on the table.Translating complex medical information
Helping people understand options, likely outcomes, and tradeoffs in clear, comprehensible terms.Eliciting values and priorities
Exploring what matters most to the individual, including goals, fears, hopes, and tolerance for risk.Mapping choices to personal priorities
Considering how different options may align — or conflict — with those priorities in practical, lived experience
Supporting Shared Understanding
When illness affects not just one person but an entire family, decisions can become even more complex. Different perspectives, emotional responses, and interpretations of information may surface.
IPIC helps support shared understanding by:
facilitating conversations among family members
helping navigate differing perspectives
creating space for questions that are difficult to raise in clinical settings
The goal is not consensus for its own sake, but clarity — so that decisions reflect what matters most to the person at the center of care.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Depending on your situation, support may include:
Preparing for medical visits
Clarifying questions, reviewing information in advance, and thinking through what matters most before key appointments.Support during and after visits
Participating in selected appointments (virtually or in person when feasible), followed by debriefing to help make sense of what was discussed.Facilitated family conversations
Helping families develop shared understanding, navigate different perspectives, and focus decisions around the values of the person at the center of care.Ongoing decision support
Private meetings to review evolving information, revisit priorities, and adjust plans as circumstances change.Advance care and contingency planning
Thoughtful planning ahead — before decisions are urgent — grounded in values, not checklists.
What IPIC Is — and Is Not
IPIC’s role is consultative and complementary.
We do not replace your medical team or direct medical care.
Instead, IPIC helps create enough clarity and perspective for decisions to feel more manageable, even when timing is urgent — and to support choices that are deliberate, aligned, and easier to live with over time.
You don’t need to have everything figured out to begin.
A first conversation can help clarify whether and how IPIC might be useful for your situation.