IVF cycle process vs outcome

Usually, a good process leads to a good outcome, and this is exactly what is expected of a good IVF clinic. However, sometimes the bitter truth is that even though doctors follow a good process, the outcome is bad, which means that despite providing patients with the right medical care, they don’t get pregnant.

Now if a patient fails multiple IVF cycles, this could be because of poor quality embryos because of aged eggs, and this is not a problem that an IVF doctor can solve because we can’t make your ovaries younger. However, unless patients learn to differentiate between a good process and a bad process, they will never be sure what the reason for the bad outcome was!

Most of the time, bad outcomes are a result of bad processes, and this is why it’s so important for patients to understand how to differentiate between good IVF processes and bad ones.

The good news is there is a simple, tangible endpoint that can allow you to do so – and this is photographs of your embryos.

If the clinic is able to produce good quality blastocysts and document this, this confirms the process followed was correct, and patients should have peace of mind they received high-quality medical care, irrespective of the final outcome.

Interestingly, many clinics follow bad processes and still end up with good outcomes for some patients. This is true of large-volume IVF clinics, especially those run by corporate chains, whose major interest is maximizing their profits. They recommend IVF for every infertile couple who comes to them, whether or not they actually need it medically. Now, suppose you start doing IVF for young couples who don't need IVF in the first place, and who would have got pregnant with simpler treatment options. In that case, you are able to inflate your success rates and can take credit for running a good IVF program, while actually, your IVF program is terrible. Still, because you are cheating lots of young patients who have a very good prognosis, the success rates can easily be magnified, to make it appear that the program follows good processes! What’s even worse is that these patients who get pregnant after IVF are so clueless, that they don’t even realize that they didn’t need IVF at all, and are happy to send their friends to the same clinic, as a result, which this snowballs very quickly!

These clinics can be identified by the fact they will not share embryo photos with their patients, because they want to hide what they are doing, and don't want their patients to leave and go to another doctor, which is why they keep them in the dark.