Olio and Sterling Healthcare Management Partner to Modernize the Full Patient Journey Across Indiana

A quality-minded, family-owned Indiana operator chose Olio not just to solve an inbound referral problem — but to bring consistency, visibility, and accountability to every stage of the patient journey.

INDIANAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sterling Healthcare Management is a family-owned skilled nursing operator with eight skilled nursing communities across Indiana, known for a family-first approach to care and outcomes. Today, Olio announces a new partnership with Sterling that spans inbound referral management, census visibility, outbound referral coordination, and post-discharge tracking across its Indiana network.

For Sterling, the catalyst was a referral volume problem: hospital systems were generating patient referrals at scale, with some packets reaching 300 pages. Staff scrambled to manually review each one and make accept-or-deny decisions as fast as possible. Olio condenses those packets into two-page summaries, surfacing information relevant to each community’s specific admissions criteria. Each of Sterling's eight skilled nursing communities carries a different clinical focus, and Olio allows each community to set its own criteria, automatically distinguishing fit across locations.

Solving inbound referrals was only the beginning. As Sterling evaluated Olio, it became clear there was a greater opportunity to streamline operations by managing multiple aspects of their business on a single platform. Before Olio, Sterling's clinical leadership relied on daily census reports from each community, completing a tedious, community-by-community review. With Olio, a live discharge calendar provides leaders with a shared view of who is leaving, when, and where across all communities. Clinical liaisons can alert hospital partners about bed availability days in advance, referral teams can plan backfill strategically, and leadership can efficiently staff to forecasted census.

As patients approach discharge, Sterling's teams will now use Olio to initiate and manage outbound referrals to home health, hospice, and other post-acute providers, replacing phone, fax, and email with documented, timestamped digital referrals. Once a resident leaves the community, Olio keeps Sterling connected to downstream partners and compliant with CMS requirements. Care teams communicate in the platform, and every handoff interaction is automatically documented, helping avoid CMS F627 and F628 citations. An insights dashboard tracks outcomes, response times, readmission rates, and acceptance rates across the partner network — providing Sterling with data to demonstrate their performance as payers increasingly hold SNFs accountable through scorecards.

What Sterling found in Olio was not a point solution for a single problem. It was a purpose-built platform to address the entire patient journey. While referral volume and complexity are currently the most immediate challenges for operators, the leaders who think bigger picture and build an end-to-end infrastructure will be best positioned to maintain quality and grow responsibly. Olio provides that infrastructure.

“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.”

Elizabeth Kegg, Chief Nursing Officer, Sterling Healthcare Management

About Olio

Olio is the leading care coordination platform purpose-built for transitions of care, and the only end-to-end solution on the market. Its four integrated capabilities, AI-Powered Inbound Referrals, Census Management, Outbound Referral Coordination, and Olio Insights, modernize the entire patient journey from referral intake through post-discharge. Olio connects care teams, keeps them engaged, and delivers the insights organizations need to improve outcomes and reduce costs. Learn more at www.olio.health.

About Sterling Healthcare Management

Sterling Healthcare Management is a premier provider of specialized senior living and skilled nursing communities, renowned for its commitment to operational excellence and exceptional resident support. Sterling Healthcare manages a diverse portfolio of communities throughout Indiana, including independent living, assisted living, long-term care, and short-term rehabilitation. Sterling distinguishes itself through clinical specializations, including dedicated memory care, convenient in-house dialysis, and compassionate, skilled nursing tailored for intellectually and developmentally disabled individuals. Guided by a mission to cultivate nurturing, enriching environments, Sterling continuously elevates standard care models to empower residents and support families across every community it serves.