Patient-Centered RAG for Oncology Visit Aid Following the Ottawa Decision Guide

Effective communication is essential in cancer care, yet patients often face challenges in preparing for complex medical visits. We present an interactive, Retrieval-augmented Generation-assisted system that helps patients progress from uninformed to visit-ready. Our system adapts the Ottawa Personal Decision Guide into a dynamic retrieval-augmented generation workflow, helping users bridge knowledge gaps, clarify personal values and generate useful questions for their upcoming visits. Focusing on localized prostate cancer, we conduct a user study with patients and a clinical expert. Results show high system usability (UMUX Mean = 6.0 out of 7), strong relevance of generated content (Mean = 6.7 out of 7), minimal need for edits, and high clinical faithfulness (Mean = 6.82 out of 7). This work demonstrates the potential of combining patient-centered design with language models to enhance clinical preparation in oncology care.