Jennifer Tjia, MD, MSCE

Dr. Tjia is Professor of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences (tenure track). Dr. Tjia’s research focuses on understanding how to minimize harm and maximize benefit from prescription medication use in older adults with advanced illness. The underlying premise of her work is that prescription medications are of most benefit when used in the context of patients’ goals for care. Her work examines the prevalence and predictors of unnecessary medication use in institutionalized and hospice-enrolled elders, and aims to develop safe and effective approaches to deprescribing. She is Co-Lead of the Investigator Development Core for the US Deprescribing Network (https://deprescribingresearch.org). Her principal areas of interest include:
• Developing and evaluating interprofessional educational interventions to standardize medication review and deprescribing for older adults approaching the end of life
• Evaluating facilitators and barriers to high quality communication between providers, patients and family caregivers, including use of advance care planning
• Developing interventions to align patient symptom trajectory and medication burden with appropriate health care service utilization, including hospice use

Jennifer Tjia, MD, MS
Jennifer.Tjia@umassmed.edu
774-455-3538