Health systems see a financial return based on how deeply they adopt and configure Epic — not just whether they use it, according to company founder and CEO Judy Faulkner.
Here are four notes on data Ms. Faulkner presented at Epic’s Users Group Meeting last month in Verona, Wis.:
1. Net revenue climbs after go-live, more so for top performers. Ms. Faulkner told attendees that organizations using Epic see net revenue rise, on average, after go-live. Citing data from 31 enterprise go-lives between 2021 and 2024, Epic found net revenue in the second year after go-live rose 13.7% for organizations in the top quartile, 10.9% for the median organization and 4.9% for the bottom quartile. Gains were smaller in the first year after go-live — 6.9%, 4.4% and 1.6%, respectively — before widening the following year.
2. Operating margins scale with Epic’s Gold Stars level. Using 2025 financial data from Moody’s and S&P, Epic found operating margins rose alongside an organization’s Gold Stars score, the company’s 10-tier program measuring how much of Epic’s available functionality a health system has turned on. Organizations at one to five stars posted a 1% average operating margin, compared with 2.2% for those at six to seven stars and 2.9% for those at eight or more stars.
3. Nearly a quarter of Epic’s customers are still in the bottom tier. Ms. Faulkner said 115 organizations, or 23% of the Epic user base represented at the meeting, have five Gold Stars or fewer.
“That means you have lots of opportunities,” she said.
4. Ms. Faulkner stopped short of calling it cause and effect. Asking rhetorically whether organizations with higher Gold Stars scores perform better financially than those with lower scores, Ms. Faulkner answered yes, but cautioned against reading too much into the relationship.
“We certainly don’t know if it’s caused, but you should do it anyway,” she said. “Think about what you could do with another percent or two of extra margin too.”
For CIOs and CFOs weighing where to spend limited IT resources, the message from Epic’s leadership was straightforward: deeper adoption of the system’s existing functionality tracks with stronger financial performance.
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