Case Study - OCA Aspire Reduces Hosting Costs With Multi-Tenant Architecture
We partnered with Aligned to assess our technology stack and co-create a strategic roadmap aimed at maintaining Aspire as the leading EHR solution for chiropractors and allied health professionals. They swiftly identified critical areas for improvement and designed an ambitious plan to accelerate innovation while enhancing performance, scalability, and cost efficiency - achievements many other providers dismissed as unattainable or overly complex.
Remarkably, Aligned delivered results in under six months and within budget, all without disrupting our ongoing operations. Their expertise not only transformed our platform but also positioned us for sustainable growth. Today, they continue to support us as we fulfill our commitment to clients with a modernized foundation built for the future.
Aligned changed OCA Aspire’s architecture and automated clinic provisioning to reduce the work and cost of onboarding clinics. The engineering also included technology upgrades, access controls, and a new data platform.
OCA Aspire is an electronic health record (EHR) and practice management solution designed for Ontario chiropractors and allied health professionals. Developed by the Ontario Chiropractic Association, OCA Aspire improves patient care and simplifies administrative tasks through online booking, scheduling, billing, payments, and integrated accounting, while ensuring compliance with evolving healthcare standards.
The Situation
OCA Aspire needed to expand across Canada, but its architecture made onboarding and supporting additional clinics costly. The team faced several connected problems:
- High Scaling Costs: Onboarding new clinics required time-consuming manual processes with inefficient resource allocation that would have compounded as the platform expanded.
- Legacy Technology: An outdated technology stack created performance bottlenecks and increased maintenance overhead, diverting engineering resources from innovation.
- Missed Monetization Opportunities: Lack of centralized clinical data aggregation slowed insight generation, limiting platform value for research and advocacy.
- Strategic Misalignment: No clear plan connected technical execution with business goals like cost optimization and multi-clinic expansion.
- Reduced Pace of Innovation: Legacy architecture hindered agility in developing new features, causing delays in addressing evolving market needs.
- Reduced Developer Velocity: A bloated codebase and outdated tools slowed development cycles, extending time-to-market for essential enhancements.
Our Approach
Aligned investigated the platform with OCA Aspire and implemented the following architectural changes:
Multi-Tenant Architecture for Cost-Effective Growth
Implemented a multi-tenant architecture with automated provisioning to cut clinic onboarding time and operational overhead, creating isolated yet scalable environments that right-size costs while ensuring compliance.
Technology Stack Upgrades to Accelerate Delivery
Upgraded to latest stable versions, boosting performance and cloud-native compatibility while refactoring the codebase to eliminate outdated libraries and accelerate development cycles.
Security & Compliance Reinforcement for Proactive Risk Mitigation
Deployed role-based access controls, tenant isolation frameworks, and privileged identity management, designing infrastructure to be PIPEDA/PHIPA-ready with comprehensive audit trails.
Centralized Data Aggregation for Professional Insights and AI-Readiness
Built a new data platform that securely aggregates anonymized clinical data across all clinics, enabling dynamic reporting and laying groundwork for AI-driven insights to fuel research and advocacy.
Value Delivered
The case reports these results from the architecture, provisioning, and technology changes:
- $1M+ in Annualized Cost Savings.
Reduced reliance on legacy technology and right-sized cloud resource allocation.
- 90% Reduction in Incremental Hosting & Operating Costs.
Slashed per-instance costs through automated capacity adjustments.
- Doubled Throughput & Halved Response Times.
Achieved significant performance gains, enabling seamless Canada-wide expansion.
- 75% Reduction in Codebase Size.
Drastically increased developer productivity and removed delivery friction.
Multi-tenant architecture and automated provisioning changed how OCA Aspire onboards and supports clinics. The smaller, updated codebase gave its engineers less legacy code to maintain as they developed the platform.
If onboarding, hosting costs, or an aging codebase are limiting what your business can do, let’s talk.
- Platform De-risking
- Value Creation
- Healthcare Technology
- Embedded Execution