Epic Gold Stars Program: What’s New and How to Excel

For organizations using Epic’s EHR system, the Epic Gold Stars program is the ultimate benchmark of excellence. With its newly updated criteria, the program is raising the bar for operational efficiency, patient engagement, and clinical outcomes.

How do these changes affect your organization? How can you align with the updated criteria and not only meet but exceed expectations? This blog post will guide you through the latest updates to Epic Gold Stars, breaking down what’s new, why it matters, and how you can use these insights to propel your healthcare organization toward higher levels of achievement.

Whether you’re aiming to climb the Gold Stars ladder or simply seeking to improve your EHR performance, this is your roadmap to success. Let’s dive into the new criteria and unlock the path to EHR excellence!

What this blog covers:

• What Is the Epic Gold Stars Program?
• The Epic Gold Stars Framework: Focuses and Areas
• Epic Gold Stars vs. Epic Honor Roll: Understanding the Difference
• Common Barriers to Achieving Epic Gold Stars
• What Has Changed in the Epic Gold Stars Criteria and Its Impact
• Why Meeting the New Criteria of Epic Gold Stars Matters
• Detailed Steps to Meet Epic Gold Stars Criteria
• How a Strategic Partner Can Help
• Why Jeeves Is Your Ideal Partner for Epic Gold Stars

What Is the Epic Gold Stars Program?

The Epic Gold Stars program is a benchmarking framework that measures how effectively healthcare organizations are utilizing their Epic Electronic Health Record (EHR) system. With a structured progression across 10 levels, the program evaluates the adoption and impact of key features. To reach level 10, an organization is generally required to meet a 95% threshold. Achieving this level places the organization in the top 9% of Epic users nationally and the top 3% internationally.

At its core, the Epic Gold Stars program serves as both a performance metric and a roadmap for improvement. It doesn’t just measure the Return on Investment (ROI) from Epic’s implementation, but the program also highlights untapped opportunities for organizations to optimize workflows, improve patient outcomes, and boost financial performance.

Organizations that excel in the Epic Gold Stars program often experience significant advancements in operational efficiency and care delivery. From increasing patient self-scheduling rates to improving financial processes and achieving national benchmarks like HIMSS Stage 7, higher Epic Gold Star levels are synonymous with excellence in EHR utilization.

The Epic Gold Stars Framework: Focuses and Areas

Gold Stars items are usually grouped into tiers, focuses, and areas. Tiers signify different stages of achievement and complexity.

Tiers 1-4 are core Epic components and functionality, tiers 5-7 represent optimized use of Epic, and tiers 8-10 represent leading practices in EMR use.

Gold Stars by Focus

These categories assess organizational performance based on overarching goals. They evaluate how Epic supports key areas such as:

• Physician Productivity & Joy to Use
• Operating Margin Success
• Population Health Management
• Patient Engagement & Self-Help
• Value From Data
• Nursing Productivity
• Mobile Integration
• Community & Affiliations
• Patient Access
• Quality and Safety
• Research
   

These focus areas are just a few examples and highlight Epic’s role in optimizing various aspects of healthcare delivery, from improving physician workflows to enhancing patient engagement.

Gold Stars by Area

These categories group performance metrics based on specific service lines within a healthcare organization. Some examples include:

• Enterprise
• Ambulatory Care
• Acute Care
• Emergency Department
• Surgery
• Revenue Cycle
• Scheduling, Registration & ADT
• Beyond The Walls
• Cogito & Healthy Planet
• Specialties & Ancillaries
• MyChart

By understanding these focus areas and service lines, healthcare organizations can prioritize their efforts in a way that maximizes performance, helping them achieve higher Gold Stars recognition.

Epic Gold Stars vs. Epic Honor Roll: Understanding the Difference

While both Epic Honor Roll and Epic Gold Stars aim to help healthcare organizations maximize their Epic EHR investment, they differ significantly in focus, scope, and purpose.

What is Epic Honor Roll?

• Purpose: The Honor Roll is a voluntary program that ensures healthcare organizations are maintaining the foundational quality of their Epic systems. It focuses on adherence to best practices, keeping systems up-to-date, and optimizing essential functionalities.
• Criteria: Organizations must meet standards in eight core components, including Ease of Use for Providers, Infrastructure, and Population Health.
• Incentives: Eligible organizations can receive financial grants as rewards for meeting these benchmarks.
• Impact: Honor Roll certification is about building a solid foundation for efficiency and consistent performance. It ensures organizations are getting the basics right, improving workflows, patient care, and provider satisfaction.
   

How is Epic Honor Roll different from Epic Gold Stars?

Focus

• Epic Honor Roll: Foundational quality and system maintenance.
• Epic Gold Stars: Advanced utilization and best practices.

Scope

• Epic Honor Roll: Core functionalities and eight components.
• Epic Gold Stars: Comprehensive performance across 10 levels.

Incentives

• Epic Honor Roll: Financial grants.
• Epic Gold Stars: Improved ROI and industry recognition.

Purpose

• Epic Honor Roll: Ensuring stability and efficiency.
• Epic Gold Stars: Driving innovation and excellence.
   

Why Both Matter

Both programs complement each other:

• Epic Honor Roll establishes the groundwork, ensuring an organization is operating at a baseline level of efficiency and quality.
• Epic Gold Stars builds on this foundation, driving further innovation and helping organizations achieve transformative outcomes.
   

Together, they form a comprehensive strategy to optimize Epic EHR systems, empowering healthcare organizations to achieve both operational stability and cutting-edge excellence.

Common Barriers to Achieving Epic Gold Stars

Many healthcare organizations encounter roadblocks that can slow down progress or prevent success altogether. Here are some of the most common barriers and their potential impact:

1. Lack of Proper Training and Adoption by Clinicians and Staff

One of the most significant challenges is ensuring that everyone who interacts with Epic is not only properly trained during onboarding but also receives continuous training and support. Many organizations rely heavily on initial onboarding training, which, while important, is not enough to sustain long-term proficiency. The Ebbinghaus effect illustrates how information retention declines over time, meaning that without ongoing training, clinicians and staff may forget critical details, struggle with system usage, and fall back on inefficient workarounds. This lack of continuous education often leads to frustration and underutilization of Epic’s features. 

The right approach to Epic training is crucial in overcoming this challenge. Without ongoing reinforcement, clinicians may forget critical details, struggle with system usage, and fall back on inefficient workarounds.

2. Inadequate Optimization of Workflows or Underutilization of Epic Features

Organizations often fail to fully explore Epic’s robust capabilities, leaving powerful tools and features untapped. This can result in:

• Manual processes that could otherwise be automated.
• Missed opportunities to improve clinical and financial outcomes.
• Delays in achieving the metrics needed for higher Epic Gold Stars levels.

3. Resistance to Change Within the Organization

Implementing new workflows or leveraging advanced Epic features often requires significant cultural shifts. Resistance to change from clinicians or administrative staff can stall progress. Typical signs of resistance include:

• Reluctance to adopt new tools or workflows.
• Negative feedback or low morale during system updates.
• Hesitation in fully committing to Epic Gold Stars initiatives.
   

4. Insufficient Leadership Buy-in or Strategic Alignment

Achieving Epic Gold Stars requires support from leadership at all levels. Without clear strategic alignment and commitment, efforts can falter due to:

• Lack of resources or funding for training and optimization.
• Disjointed communication between teams.
• Failure to prioritize initiatives that align with Epic Gold Stars criteria.

5. Challenges with Data Integrity, Reporting, and Analytics

Data is the backbone of performance measurement in the Epic Gold Stars framework. Issues like poor data quality or fragmented reporting systems can undermine efforts by:

• Providing inaccurate metrics that fail to reflect real performance.
• Reducing trust in analytics tools.
• Making it difficult to demonstrate progress or ROI.

Overcoming These Barriers

While these challenges may seem daunting, they are not insurmountable. A proactive approach that includes leadership commitment, targeted training, and strategic optimization of workflows can help your organization overcome these barriers and achieve higher levels of Epic Gold Stars success.

What Has Changed in the Epic Gold Stars Criteria and Its Impact

Epic’s newly updated Gold Stars criteria now place a stronger emphasis on both configuration and utilization, ensuring that healthcare organizations not only implement Epic’s tools but also actively use them to drive meaningful outcomes. With the 2024 Gold Stars update, organizations will have two separate levels:

• Configuration Gold Stars Level – Based on how many applicable Gold Stars items are set up.
• Utilization Gold Stars Level – Reflecting how effectively these features are used in day-to-day workflows.

This shift means that achieving a high Gold Stars ranking is no longer just about enabling features—it’s about making sure physicians and staff are actively engaging with Epic tools to enhance productivity and patient outcomes. This change presents both a challenge and an opportunity to further improve outcomes and drive efficiencies.

Example: Physician Productivity
Previously, an organization’s Gold Stars score for Physician Productivity may have been based primarily on how many efficiency tools—such as SmartTools, note templates, and voice recognition—were configured in Epic. Now, the focus is on real-world adoption and impact:

• Are physicians actually using these tools to reduce documentation time and spend more time with patients?
• Is there a measurable improvement in chart completion rates and order entry efficiency?
• Are providers leveraging in-basket management features to streamline communication and minimize administrative burden?

By shifting the focus from implementation to actual usage and efficiency gains, Epic ensures that Gold Stars levels reflect tangible improvements in physician workflows rather than just system configurations. Also, by prioritizing workflow adoption and engagement, organizations can enhance clinician satisfaction, reduce burnout, and improve patient care.

Understanding the Gold Stars Framework

Epic’s Gold Stars program acts as a roadmap, grouping over 800 Gold Stars items into focus areas and tiers to help organizations prioritize optimization efforts.

Gold Stars Tiers

Gold Stars features are categorized into tiers based on their complexity and impact:

• Tiers 1-4: Core components of Epic and fundamental functionality.
• Tiers 5-7: Optimized use of Epic.
• Tiers 8-10: Cutting-edge and leading practices in EMR use.

Gold Stars Item Threshold

Starting with the August 2024 Gold Stars release, utilization thresholds were introduced for nearly every Gold Stars feature. Now, in addition to a Configuration Gold Stars Level, your organization will also have a Utilization Gold Stars Level, reflecting how effectively you are using the features you’ve implemented.

• Physician Productivity
• Operating Margin
• Population Health Management
• Patient Experience & Self-Help
• Value from Data
• Patient Flow
• Nursing Productivity
• Patient Access
• Research
• Quality & Saving Lives
• Mobile
• Interoperability
• Time with Patient

What This Means for Your Organization

• A Shift in Strategy – Success is no longer just about feature activation—organizations must also drive adoption and track outcomes.
• More Granular Tracking – Nova allows you to track progress by focus area and tier, making it easier to set targeted improvement goals.

Check out this quick Guide to Epic Gold Stars Success for 2025 to stay ahead!

Why Meeting the New Criteria of Epic Gold Stars Matters

Achieving the updated Epic Gold Stars criteria isn’t just about earning recognition—it’s about emphasizing the integration of Epic features into daily workflows, driving improvements that matter most to your organization and patients.

Here’s why meeting these criteria is critical:

• Improved Clinician Productivity and Satisfaction: Streamlined workflows and effective training reduce the administrative burden, allowing clinicians to focus on patient care.
• Enhanced Patient Outcomes and Engagement: Adopting Epic’s tools effectively ensures better care delivery, improving health outcomes and fostering trust.
• Better Operational Efficiencies and Financial Performance: Optimized systems save time and reduce costs, driving higher ROI across departments.
• Boosted Reputation: Epic Gold Stars are a testament to your commitment to excellence, helping attract patients, partnerships, and top talent.

Ultimately, aligning with these criteria isn’t just an operational goal—it’s a strategic advantage that positions your organization as a leader in healthcare delivery.

Detailed Steps to Meet New Epic Gold Stars Criteria

Achieving higher Epic Gold Stars levels is a structured process. Here are the key steps your organization should follow:

1. Assess Your Current State: Start by conducting an internal audit to evaluate where your organization stands in each focus area of the Epic Gold Stars criteria. This will help you identify strengths and areas for improvement.
2. Align Leadership and Staff: Secure leadership buy-in and ensure alignment between organizational goals and the Epic Gold Stars criteria. Foster a culture of continuous improvement and collaboration across all hierarchy levels.
3. Prioritize Training and Adoption: Invest in ongoing, role-specific training to ensure that all staff members fully adopt Epic’s features. Microlearning + Just-in-Time training approach offered by platforms like Jeeves, are essential in addressing knowledge gaps and improving system use.
4. Optimize Workflows: Identify bottlenecks within your current workflows and implement changes that enhance efficiency, reduce clinician burnout, and improve patient care.
5. Leverage Analytics and Reporting: Use data to track progress, identify trends, and adjust strategies as needed. Ensure that data quality is maintained and build dashboards for transparency and real-time reporting.
6. Focus on Patient and Clinician Experience: Integrate tools and features that enhance usability for both clinicians and patients, ensuring that your Epic system is intuitive, efficient, and effective.
7. Continuously Monitor and Improve: Set up a system for regular evaluation and make adjustments to maintain or improve Epic Gold Stars levels. Continuous improvement is key to sustained success.

How a Strategic Partner Can Help

While pursuing Epic Gold Stars recognition is a comprehensive effort, having a trusted partner can make a significant difference. A strategic partner can:

• Provide Expertise in Epic Training and Optimization: An experienced partner can guide your team through the complexities of Epic’s system, helping you maximize your investment.
• Drive Operational Improvements: With a proven track record, a strategic partner can help identify inefficiencies, streamline workflows, and reduce clinician burnout.
• Offer Tools and Strategies for Ongoing Growth: Look for a partner that offers software for seamless integration with your existing workflows. For example, Jeeves enables ongoing optimization through Just-in-Time training and real-time support on its EHR training platform.

Why Jeeves Is Your Ideal Partner for Epic Gold Stars

Change is often met with resistance. It’s human nature. But pursuing excellence—like meeting the new Epic Gold Stars criteria—requires change, and with the right support, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. While most people may not love change, the process becomes much less daunting when you’re prepared and have the right tools at your side.

That’s where Jeeves steps in. Think of Jeeves as your ultimate change management partner, helping you smoothly navigate the shift to meet the new Epic Gold Stars benchmarks while making the journey as seamless as possible for your Epic users.

How? Let’s break it down:

Jeeves Delivers Help in the Flow of Work

Jeeves takes a “just-in-time” approach to training, delivering role-based microlearning modules that are tailored to specific Epic features. This ensures your team gets the help they need exactly when they need it. No more forcing training sessions into packed schedules or overwhelming clinicians with long lessons. With Jeeves, help is available at the point of need.

Clinicians can help when required and in the bite-sized training content directly within their workflow. Stuck on a feature? They don’t have to waste time searching through SharePoint folders or navigating endless resources. Also, Jeeves’ chatbot can instantly surf through your organization’s learning library to provide the exact answer to a particular question, right when they need it. And if they need more personalized assistance, Jeeves can seamlessly connect them to a live agent for deeper support.

It’s all about making Epic adoption easier and more natural. Plus, Jeeves empowers your training team to convert any training video into a quick-reference tip sheet or interactive learning module, allowing users to learn in the format they prefer.

Jeeves Simplifies Change Communication

Effective change isn’t just about training—it’s about communication too. Jeeves helps you ensure clinicians stay informed and engaged with clear, timely updates about how changes will impact their workflows. With Jeeves, you can easily send communications via email, and the platform also provides in-app notifications about “What’s New” in an EHR user’s department as soon as the training team creates new resources. No need for clinicians to look elsewhere or get lost in a sea of messages. Everything they need to know is delivered directly to them, right in their workflow.

Pro tip: Focus on communicating changes only related to their workflow. This way, you’ll capture their full attention and drive meaningful engagement.

By integrating Jeeves into your organization, you can drive higher adoption of Epic’s features, boost clinician satisfaction, and ultimately improve patient outcomes—all while helping your team stay on track to achieve and sustain Epic Gold Stars.

Jeeves Keeps Your Team Up-to-Speed With Epic Upgrades

Keeping up with Epic upgrades can be a challenge, but it’s crucial to ensure that your team remains informed and prepared. Jeeves makes this process effortless. With Jeeves, your training team can easily create microlearning videos, tip sheets, and interactive learning modules to highlight changes in the workflow. These materials can be shared directly with clinicians through "Assignments." Clinicians are promptly notified whenever a new assignment is created and assigned to them, complete with a set due date for completion. Plus, your training team can track assignment progress to ensure that clinicians are staying on top of essential updates. This streamlined approach makes it easier for your team to stay current and maximize Epic's evolving capabilities.

Need a hand navigating the new Epic Gold Stars criteria?

Jeeves is here to support you every step of the way. 
Schedule a call today to see how we can help you achieve Gold Stars with ease.