At Epic’s User Group Meeting 2024, Epic announced new criteria for Gold Stars, its 10-level continuous improvement program designed to help customers stay updated on the latest Epic functionality. While the program previously focused on organizations installing new features, it is expanding to include user adoption and measurable impact on clinical and financial performance. Here’s what every healthcare leader needs to know to successfully navigate these changes.
How changes to Epic’s Gold Stars program will impact hospitals and health systems
Many healthcare leaders are concerned about how the new Epic Gold Stars requirements will impact their organization’s current ranking and Honor Roll designation. The benefits of implementing and optimizing Epic functionality are significant, and the Honor Roll distinction signals that the healthcare organization is not only effectively using the Epic system but also leading the way in healthcare IT innovation and quality of care. However, many hospitals and health systems lack the resources to maximize digital investments, putting them at risk of “leveling down” in Gold Stars ranking under the new criteria. This could lead to:
- Reduced patient safety and engagement as well as diminished interoperability and clinical outcomes due to dated or underimplemented Epic tools and workflows
- Increased clinician burnout due to inefficient processes and inadequate training on Epic tools
- Decreased monthly net revenue from the inability to measure and improve financial performance using technology
- Potential loss of financial incentives associated with Epic Honor Roll designation
As the industry awaits more details on the implications of the revamped Gold Stars program, it’s clear that leaders must start planning now to ensure their organizations don’t get left behind.
6 steps to optimize healthcare technology amid new Epic Gold Stars criteria
As you maneuver through the implications of the Epic Gold Stars revamp, consider these six actions that can help your organization immediately begin intake of critical Epic features:
- Map to the metrics: Export your Gold Stars features, regardless of completed status, and categorize them by their associated clinical and financial metrics.
- Benchmark: Prioritize the features associated with mapped metrics that fall below your user cohort’s median and top performers.
- Seek root causes: Partner with leaders across the enterprise to understand the business decisions leading to underadoption or delayed rollout of underadopted features.
- Assess your culture of change: Ask these questions: Do you have an organized change management function strategically aligned to your larger enterprise and focused on innovation? Do your clinicians share similar practice standards to allow for wide feature adoption and enterprise rollouts of features at scale? Is adoption measured and monitored as a standard component of your IT implementation methodology?
- Establish focus groups: Solicit candid feedback on buckets of features (either by grouped applications or mapped metrics) from small focus groups representing the user personas of the underadopted features. This can help you learn how functionality can be enhanced to build trust and increase usage and can also inform re-design, build, and training.
- Communication and training: Boost utilization by implementing an effective communications plan and ongoing training to elevate understanding among stakeholders about how new health IT features benefit them.
The value of strategic partnership in tackling the new Epic Gold Stars criteria
A strategic partner with deep healthcare and technology experience can help your organization develop and execute a holistic, data-driven management plan that enables faster technology adoption and higher levels of utilization, proficiency, and clinician satisfaction. No matter where you are on your Epic Gold Stars journey, a comprehensive digital strategy is vital to maintaining or improving your organization’s current Gold Stars rating and advancing clinical and financial outcomes. A robust approach should entail the following:
- Aligning technology to best practices and organizational strategic objectives
- Identifying and prioritizing Gold Stars-rated features that are underutilized by staff or not yet implemented
- Examining efforts based on clinical and financial benefit opportunity
- Curating a custom plan for change management, user adoption, and training
- Creating a thorough roadmap that contains estimated work effort, scope, timeline, and budget for optimization efforts
Agility is key to delivering high-quality care and strengthening operations and financial performance. Limited resources leave many healthcare leaders overwhelmed with constant industry changes. The expansion of Epic’s Gold Stars program is just the latest example of how a strategic partnership can help healthcare organizations maximize health IT investments, fill in gaps in expertise and staffing, and seamlessly meet the demands of a rapidly evolving healthcare landscape.
Want to explore how Nordic can help your organization navigate the clinical, operational, and financial complexities of the new Epic Gold Stars criteria? Contact us today to schedule a 1:1 consultation.