< + > What’s It Take to Achieve Epic Gold Stars Level 9?

There are all sort of ways that a CIO can motivate their team to higher levels of technology adoption including the HIMSS EMRAM, Most Wired Hospital, and for Epic users there’s the Epic Gold Stars program.  At the Epic user conference, hospitals and health systems are recognized for their implementation and use of the Epic EHR system.  It’s a 10-level program that encourages users to continually improve how they are using the Epic software in their organization.  We all know about EHR systems that have been implemented and then the organization has not continued with upgrades or continued looking at ways to use the full functionality of the system.  This program works to avoid that problem.

At the recent CHIME Fall Forum conference, I had a chance to sit down with Ray Lowe, SVP and CIO at AltaMed, and Bill Lewkowski, Vice President of Strategic Client Services at HCTec, to learn more about their experience with the Epic Gold Stars program.  AltaMed had recently been awarded the level 9 milestone and we wanted to learn more about what it took to get their organization to level 9 and some of the details of how HCTec helped them through the process.

Lowe starts off by sharing where AltaMed was rated prior to earning level 9 and what improvements needed to be made to achieve a much higher level.  Lewkowski shared his experience as a former CIO with awards like this and what it takes for an organization to achieve these high levels of IT usage.  Lowe also talked about which parts of Epic Gold Stars Level 9 was hardest and what made it challenging.  Needless to say, it’s not an easy process and both acknowledged that it takes really bringing the team together with partners who can help you reach that goal.

When asked if Lowe and his team at AltaMed were planning to go after Level 10 status, Lowe wasn’t sure yet if that was going to be a goal for his organization.  He described that these types of programs that recognize an organization for implementing best practices are good, but they don’t just do it for the award.  Lowe, his team, and their partners like HCTec take a look at the requirements to make sure that whatever is being implemented will benefit the patients, their clinicians, or the organization.  If it doesn’t align with the mission, then it may not be worth doing.

A lot of CIOs have leveraged programs like the Epic Gold Stars program to create a shared goal and alignment for their teams.  Check out our interview with AltaMed and HCTec to learn more about their experience achieving the Epic Gold Stars Level 9 milestone.

Learn more about AltaMed: https://www.altamed.org/

Learn more about HCTec: https://hctec.com/

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