Five for five: UTHealth Houston earns Epic Level 10 Gold Stars
Graphic by UTHealth Houston
Five years in a row, UTHealth Houston makes earning Epic’s top-level recognition look easy.
Once again, the university has earned Epic’s highest Gold Stars rating—Level 10. The Gold Stars program helps organizations get more from Epic to improve clinical and financial outcomes. Level 10 represents about 95% of Epic features turned on. This year, UTHealth Houston was one of two Texas healthcare organizations to receive the honor, which was announced at the Epic User Group Meeting in Wisconsin in August.
Olasunkanmi Adeyinka, MD, chief medical information officer at UT Physicians, believes the award extends beyond much more than the recognition.
“Epic Gold Stars is less about earning a designation and more about achieving measurable improvements in clinician experience, patient outcomes, operational efficiency, and financial performance through optimized use of Epic,” Adeyinka said.
The program evaluates organizations on two separate metrics: configuration and usage. Just 37 out of 600-plus Epic customers achieved Level 10 Gold Stars in 2026. The university also earned Level 7 in usage. Introduced by Epic two years ago, the usage component was led by Stephanie Dixon, assistant director of strategic initiatives at UTHealth Houston. The focus on usage looks at how Epic’s capabilities are actually put into practice. This drives improvement in patient satisfaction, the provider and nursing experience, and the university’s broader strategic priorities.
The prestigious award recognizes sustained excellence and collaboration across clinics and the university. Multidisciplinary teams made this achievement possible by sharing expertise, adapting, and continually looking for ways to improve.
“It’s not a small thing,” said Dr. Babatope Fatuyi, chief health innovation officer at UTHealth Houston. “It is years of disciplined work from a team that keeps raising its own bar, and it sets us up well for the AI-forward direction we are all excited to prioritize and build out based on where our organization actually needs it, not just where the hype points.”
Turning challenges into success
Jawad Hasan, senior project manager for enterprise IT at UTHealth Houston, has led the Gold Stars configuration initiative the last four years. He credits five practices that enabled the university to succeed again, despite challenges along the way.
- Drive feature adoption: Prioritized Epic capabilities that deliver meaningful value while aligning technology with clinician needs.
- Promote best practices: Standardized workflows around clinical evidence and proven best practices.
- Improve performance metrics: Connected technology and workflow improvements to measurable outcomes.
- Strengthen product and culture: Invested in people, workflows, training, communication, and collaboration, which fostered innovation between IT and clinical teams.
- Recognize achievement: Recognized the dedication of those who made this success possible.
The ultimate success is continuously improving how we work and how we serve our providers and patients. Congratulations to everyone across UTHealth Houston who contributed to this achievement.
