Aster DM Healthcare is one of the largest and leading healthcare providers in India, operating a network of hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and offering digital health solutions across India. Their unwavering commitment to delivering quality, accessible healthcare, supported by advanced medical technology and a skilled workforce, is what makes them truly unique. “We will Treat You Well” is the promise Aster stands on, shaping how they care for patients and how they choose the technology that supports their growing network.

Business Challenges

As Aster’s operations expanded, managing item and service master data efficiently across facilities became challenging. Although a cataloguing tool was already in use, it lacked support for bulk operations and did not offer comprehensive lifecycle management.

This led to several key challenges:

  • Bulk creation and updates were not supported, resulting in time-consuming manual work for managing high-volume data.
  • Certain actions, such as associating items with new inventory organizations, required workaround-based solutions outside standard workflows.
  • There was limited visibility into audit trails and SLA timelines, making it difficult to track change history and monitor turnaround times.
  • Taxonomy structures were maintained externally in spreadsheets, increasing the risk of misalignment and data duplication.
  • With a growing master data set of over 190,000 SKUs, ensuring uniqueness and classification consistency became increasingly complex.

These limitations highlighted the need for a scalable, workflow-driven, and auditable Master Data Management platform one capable of enabling enterprise-wide standardization and governance, while integrating seamlessly with diverse HIS systems, the core ERP, and Aster’s evolving digital landscape.

Why Aster DM Healthcare, India Chose Oracle APEX

Aster DM Healthcare, India evaluated multiple solutions including off-the-shelf MDM systems, and several low-code platforms. A few factors made Oracle APEX a clear choice:

  1. Speed of development
    Aster DM Healthcare, India had a tight 3-month deadline before FY25–26. Oracle APEX low-code approach made it possible to design, build, test, and deploy the entire MDM solution in just 2.5 months.
  2. Strong Integration Capability
    Aster was already using Oracle Fusion ERP. Oracle APEX offered native, API-driven integration with Fusion which made it easy to build REST services for their different HIS vendors.
  1. Autonomous AI Database advantages
    Running Oracle APEX on Autonomous AI Database delivered a lot of advantages, such as automatic patching, scaling, backups, and built-in performance tuning. Features like parallel processing, data catalog, and fuzzy search directly addressed Aster’s high data volumes and data quality needs.
  2. Flexibility
    Aster needed multi-level approvals, audit trails, and strong governance controls. Oracle APEX comes with a built-in workflow engine which gave them the flexibility to build a system tailored to their operations while still staying within a tight timeline.
  3. Cost efficiency
    Since Oracle APEX is included at no extra cost with Oracle AI Database license, it eliminated the licensing and integration costs associated with other low-code platforms or MDM systems. The inbuilt workflow engine of Oracle APEX has further reduced costs by removing the need to invest in licenses of third party tools.

The Solution Built on Oracle APEX

Aster DM Healthcare built a full-scale Master Data Management (MDM) platform with Oracle APEX on OCI Autonomous AI Database, implemented in collaboration with Maathra Technology and Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. The solution manages:

  • 190,000 item SKUs
  • 80,000+ service records
  • 4.6 million inventories 
  • REST Integrations with Oracle Fusion ERP & multiple HIS Vendors

Core capabilities of the application include:

  • Acts as the single source of truth for items and services.
  • Enforces strict validation rules and numbering conventions to improve data accuracy.
  • Uses parallel processing to handle heavy-volume integrations efficiently.
  • Supports multi-level workflow with complex rules for better governance.
  • Provides SLA/TAT reporting, dashboards, and detailed audit trails.
  • Enables bulk creation and updates through Excel uploads.
  • Exposes custom REST APIs for HIS integrations, eliminating the need for middleware.
  • Improves transparency with visual workflows that show progress and status clearly.

Three separate interfaces were designed for the three major item classifications, helping end users enter data correctly based on the category.

Aster MDM Application
GIF1: ASTER MDM APPLICATION

Impact on the Business

With Oracle APEX, Aster now runs on a reliable, transparent, and scalable MDM solution that supports day-to-day operations while being ready for log-term growth. 

Operations and Productivity

  • Bulk upload, introduced as part of the new MDM system, enables item and service records to be uploaded in just minutes.
  • Large updates, including batches of 20,000 or more records, are handled now in a single request through parallel processing.
  • Compliance-related changes and deactivations of outdated items are managed centrally and automatically pushed to all hospitals.

Data Accuracy and Governance

  • Visual workflows and detailed audit trails make every change traceable.
  • SLA and TAT dashboards help teams spot delays and keep processes on track.
  • Duplicate items and cross-facility mismatches have reduced significantly.
  • A single source of truth now supports decision-making across all 20+ hospitals.

Customer’s Quote:

“Oracle APEX and Autonomous AI Database completely transformed the way we manage our data. We built a secure, complex, multilevel, workflow-driven MDM system in weeks, fully integrated with Oracle ERP and our Hospital Information Systems.”

– Jyothi Gowda D R, Assistant Manager, DEVOPS, ASTER DM HEALTHCARE

Conclusion

Oracle APEX enabled Aster DM Healthcare, India to modernize and centralize master data management across its rapidly expanding hospital network. Built on Oracle APEX and Autonomous AI Database, the MDM solution now acts as a reliable single source of truth for items, services, and inventory across all facilities. Aster DM Healthcare, India gained stronger data governance, better compliance, and far greater operational efficiency.The combination of low-code development, embedded workflows allowed Aster to deliver a complex, enterprise-grade system in a tight timeline without escalating costs.

Read More:
Aster DM Healthcare Customer Success Story: https://www.oracle.com/customers/aster-dm-healthcare/
More about Oracle APEX: http://oracle.com/apex