Values in Care

    Values matter across the care journey.

    Organized around care moments where preferences matter, and the context that makes a choice fit one life or not. Serious illness is still a deep evidence lane, no longer the spine of the whole site.

    Start with the decision or care moment

    These are starting points. Each opens the same Decision Guide with questions fitted to the situation.

    Testing & screening

    Whether to test, how much uncertainty to accept, and what could follow from a result.

    Medication

    Expected benefit, side effects, monitoring, daily burden, cost, and alternatives.

    Treatment

    Compare likely benefit, burden, uncertainty, time, and effects on everyday life.

    Procedure or surgery

    Risk, recovery, function, time away from responsibilities, and reasonable alternatives.

    Chronic care

    Balance disease control with treatment workload, independence, participation, and life goals.

    Mental health

    Symptoms, function, therapy or medication preferences, privacy, side effects, and support.

    Pregnancy, fertility & reproductive care

    Goals, probabilities, bodily burden, family context, future fertility, and values that matter.

    Pediatric & family care

    Child wellbeing, developmental stage, family roles, treatment burden, and emerging autonomy.

    Aging, disability & support

    Function and participation on the person's terms, safety, support needs, place, and caregiver context.

    Acute or critical care

    Urgency, reversibility, expected recovery, invasive treatment, and who should be involved if time is short.

    Serious illness & end of life

    Quality and length of life, symptom relief, function, place of care, support, and life-sustaining treatment.

    I'm not sure

    Start with the choice, concern, or conversation in front of you without needing a medical category first.

    The same medical option can fit two people differently.

    So communication, caregiving, access, ethics, identity, culture, and worldview stay available in every care moment rather than being filed under one specialty.

    Serious illness remains a major evidence domain.

    The National Consensus Project palliative-care framework shaped the original evidence architecture. That work is intact and still in use, now inside the broader care-decision model rather than defining the whole scope.

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