Olio has entered into a partnership with Sterling Healthcare Management to support referral management, census oversight, outbound coordination and post-discharge tracking across the operator’s eight skilled nursing communities in Indiana. The family-owned organization selected Olio to create a more consistent approach to patient movement and operational visibility throughout its network. The agreement is designed to address challenges associated with growing referral volumes while giving clinical and administrative teams a centralized platform for managing admissions and care transitions. As part of the initiative, Healthcare Referral Management capabilities will be deployed across Sterling’s communities to help staff evaluate incoming referrals more efficiently and align patient placements with each facility’s clinical focus.
Sterling’s decision followed increasing pressure from hospital-generated referrals, with some referral packets extending to 300 pages. Reviewing these documents manually required significant staff time and delayed admissions decisions. Olio’s platform condenses referral information into two-page summaries while highlighting details relevant to each community’s admissions criteria. Because each of Sterling’s skilled nursing facilities serves different clinical needs, the system enables location-specific criteria to be configured, helping teams quickly determine whether a patient is an appropriate fit for a particular community.
Beyond referral intake, the partnership expands into broader operational management. Prior to adopting Olio, Sterling’s leadership teams relied on daily census reports submitted by individual communities and reviewed them manually. The new platform introduces a live discharge calendar that provides visibility into upcoming departures across the network. This shared view allows clinical liaisons to communicate anticipated bed availability to hospital partners, enables referral teams to prepare replacement admissions, and helps leadership align staffing plans with projected census levels. Sterling will also use the platform to coordinate outbound referrals to home health, hospice and other post-acute providers through digital workflows that replace phone calls, faxes and email communications.
Following discharge, Olio maintains connectivity between Sterling and downstream care partners while documenting interactions to support compliance requirements. The platform automatically records handoff activity and provides reporting on outcomes, response times, acceptance rates and readmission performance. According to Olio, the partnership reflects a broader effort to create end-to-end infrastructure rather than address a single operational challenge. The company said operators that establish consistency throughout the care continuum are better positioned to maintain quality standards and support sustainable growth. For Sterling, Healthcare Referral Management represents one element of a broader strategy to improve visibility, accountability and coordination across the entire patient journey.
“ Most operators come to us because of the referral problem, and it is a real one. But the ones who get the most out of Olio are the ones who recognize that inbound referrals are just the entry point. Sterling understood from the start that consistency across the full patient journey — from intake through post-discharge — is what separates good operators from great ones. That is exactly the kind of partner we built this platform for.” Ben Forrest, CEO, Olio
“We are not trying to fill every bed. We are trying to fill the right beds, and Olio gives us the visibility and the tools to do that consistently.” said Elizabeth Kegg, Chief Nursing Officer, Sterling Healthcare Management
