Published On Jul 31, 2025
Updated On Jul 31, 2025
From Records to Verifiability: The Role of Blockchain in the Healthcare Industry
Healthcare isn’t broken because of a lack of technology; it’s broken because the systems don’t trust each other.
In 2024, over 170 million patient records were exposed in breaches. 1 in 10 medical products is counterfeited in developing nations. And administrative overheads now consume nearly a quarter of hospital budgets.
And most healthcare systems still rely on siloed databases, centralised permissions, and manual coordination and models that fail to scale in a world of growing complexity and distributed care.
Blockchain is reshaping how healthcare manages trust, connects systems, and shares data across borders, institutions, and use cases.
This guide explores where it’s working today and what it means for the systems still catching up.
Let’s get started.
The State of Blockchain Adoption in Healthcare
Blockchain in healthcare is no longer a niche experiment; it’s a structural response to coordination failure.
Today, the global market for blockchain-based healthcare is $12.92 billion, growing at a CAGR of 35.2% since 2021. But its growth isn’t just technical, it’s institutional.
These alignments were changed because of three forces:
- Escalating data breach liabilities
- Regulatory mandates for verifiability and consent
- Rising pressure to reduce administrative overhead without sacrificing trust
Today, investments in the healthcare industry are concentrated around infrastructure, solutions built to integrate with hospital systems, meet compliance standards, and automate auditability from day one.
As these demands intensify, blockchain is no longer viewed as an experiment, but as a foundational layer solving the industry’s most persistent coordination and trust challenges.
Let’s explore where it’s solving real problems and delivering real results.
Why Healthcare Needs Blockchain: Real Problems, Real Results
Blockchain isn’t gaining momentum in healthcare because it’s trendy; it’s because the cost of operating without verifiability has become unsustainable.
As systems face rising compliance demands, fragmented coordination, and increased risk exposure, blockchain is shifting from an innovation to an infrastructure focus.
Blockchain is filling the structural gaps by replacing fragile systems with tamper-evident records, programmable access, and real-time transparency.
Here are some of the most pressing challenges in healthcare today and how blockchain is being used to directly address them.
Securing Health Records with Built-In Verifiability
In traditional healthcare systems, access logs are often fragmented, inconsistent, or entirely missing. This lack of traceability means that when patient data is viewed or modified, there's no reliable way to prove who accessed it, when, or why.
Most breaches happen not because data was leaked, but because there was no verifiable trail of access or change.
Blockchain introduces an immutable access layer. Every interaction viewed, edited, and shared is cryptographically logged, addressing HIPAA and GDPR audit requirements.
- Estonia has run a blockchain-based health record system since 2018, covering 99% of patient data with full access traceability.
- In the UAE, blockchain enables the Health Data Locator platform, which links public and private records, reducing test duplication and administrative costs.
Modernising Consent Management Across Institutions
Static consent models are in printed forms, fragmented checkboxes, and offline signatures, and they often don’t scale in a digital, cross-system healthcare environment. They expire without a trace, lack revocation paths, and create legal grey zones.
Blockchain addresses this through smart contracts, allowing patients to define access rules, duration, scope, and revocability programmed directly into the system.
- Triall, backed by Mayo Clinic, uses blockchain to manage consent across EU-funded trials.
- India’s Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission is piloting blockchain modules for revocable hospital data access.
Fighting Counterfeits from Factory to Pharmacy
With a $102B counterfeit drug market, pharma’s biggest challenge isn’t just fraud, it’s the lack of real-time traceability.
Legacy systems can’t reliably prove where a drug came from, how it was handled, or if it’s even authentic.
Blockchain solves this with end-to-end verification. Every transfer is cryptographically recorded, creating a tamper-proof audit trail from factory to pharmacy.
Blockchain provides end-to-end product verification. And today -
- MediLedger, used by Pfizer and Genentech, supports DSCSA compliance, which is now mandatory in the US by 2025.
- In Nigeria and Ghana, blockchain verifies antimalarial and HIV drugs at pharmacies in partnership with the UNODC.
Automating Claims with Event-Driven Smart Contracts
Manual claims are a silent cost driver, and up to 25% of hospital spending goes to admin overhead. Delays often stem from mismatched records, unverifiable treatment logs, and slow reconciliation.
Blockchain introduces event-triggered automation. A discharge or treatment entry can instantly trigger a smart contract for reimbursement, no back-and-forth.
It’s already being tested:
- In Switzerland, insurers are testing blockchain-based claims automation to cut down on duplicate outpatient submissions and reduce processing time.
Enabling Data Portability for Global and Migrant Care
As care becomes global, healthcare systems need to do more than store data; they need to move it securely across borders.
The bottleneck isn’t treatment. It’s fragmented identity systems, unverifiable credentials, and records that don’t travel.
Patients are forced to reverify themselves, redo diagnostics, or face delays simply because systems can’t coordinate.
Blockchain standards like Decentralised Identifiers (DIDs) and Verifiable Credentials (VCs) make health data sharable, without relying on centralised clouds.
- The European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) is piloting health credentialing for prescriptions and immunisations.
- In the MENA region, InfraHealth is building DID-backed digital health passports for migrant workers.
Embedded Compliance Is the Next-Gen Audit Trail
Traditional audits rely on manual reconciliation, often lagging behind real-time activity and exposing systems to undetected breaches or non-compliance.
Blockchain flips the model as every data access, consent, or update is logged and verifiable by default, making audits continuous, not episodic.
- In digital trust pilots, PwC reported a 90% reduction in reconciliation protocols.
- Projects like Zama and Inco Protocol are applying Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) to verify eligibility or insurance status without exposing full datasets.
These are not hypothetical pilots; they’re live systems reshaping how healthcare infrastructure operates.
The shift isn’t about layering blockchain over old systems, but about building shared foundations where trust, traceability, and compliance are embedded by design.
Let’s look at the emerging trends and technical solutions driving blockchain’s role in healthcare in 2025.
Industry Insights: Emerging Trends and Solutions (2025)
As blockchain moves from pilots to production in healthcare, new trends are reshaping how the technology is being applied.
In 2025, the shift is not just about adoption, it’s about how blockchain is evolving to meet real-world constraints, from compliance and scalability to data privacy and modular integration.
Below are the key industry trends and infrastructure developments influencing blockchain’s role in healthcare:
Modular Architecture Is Replacing Full-Stack Experiments
Hospitals and insurers are moving away from “blockchain-for-everything” approaches toward modular, integration-ready solutions.
The most successful deployments are those that act as middleware: plug-ins for traceability, consent, or claims, not full-stack overhauls.
Tools in use:
- Hyperledger FireFly 2.0: Used by U.S. and APAC health consortia for event-based claims workflows and secure data sharing. Offers a token-less design and fine-grained governance.
- Polygon CDK + zkEVM: Powering app-specific chains with embedded privacy. Healthcare pilots are using CDK rollups for consent management and low-latency record access in regulated environments.
Privacy-Preserving Computation Is Moving into Production
The challenge with using blockchain in healthcare has always been balancing transparency with confidentiality.
In 2025, new cryptographic tooling is bridging this gap, enabling verifiable systems without being revealing.
Tools in use:
- Zama (FHE): Allows encrypted health data to be queried or analysed without ever being decrypted. Ideal for genomics and post-market safety surveillance.
- Inco Protocol: Enables confidential smart contracts for sensitive insurance workflows, where only authorised parties can see underlying patient info.
- Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs): Widely adopted for proving consent validity and access rights without exposing raw health data.
These tools are aligning blockchain infrastructure with GDPR, HIPAA, and cross-border data minimisation laws.
Decentralised Identity (DID) Is Becoming Foundational
As healthcare gets more mobile and global, self-sovereign identity is replacing centralised KYC and static health cards.
Patients, providers, and labs need portable, cryptographically secure credentials that work across borders and systems.
Tools in use:
- SpruceID: Supports W3C-compliant DIDs and verifiable credentials. Pilots include refugee care records and hospital onboarding.
- Ceramic Network: Enables versioned, real-time updates to credentials used in patient-controlled health wallets and consent logs.
- European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI): Funding pilots for prescription portability, immunisation proof, and hospital access verification across EU member states.
Blockchain Powering Real-World Evidence Pipelines
Regulators like the FDA and EMA are increasingly relying on real-world data (RWD) for clinical decisions and approvals. But that data needs a verifiable origin and timeline to be credible.
Tools in use:
- Triall: Bridges clinical research systems with blockchain to timestamp protocol adherence, consent, and trial metadata. Used in EU Horizon 2020 trials.
- IPFS + Smart Contracts: Combined to log patient-reported outcomes or wearable data in a tamper-resistant format for post-approval research.
Governments Are Investing in Production-Grade Blockchain Infrastructure
The experimentation phase is over. National digital health strategies in 2025 include blockchain in long-term architecture for registries, audits, and patient-controlled data flows.
Governments aren’t just experimenting; they’re codifying blockchain into national health data strategies.
Public initiatives:
- India’s Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM): Includes sandbox pilots for blockchain-based consent logs and provider registries.
- EU’s EHDS Initiative: Investing in open, interoperable blockchain rails for member-state health data mobility.
- EBSI: Not just a pilot, it’s becoming the foundational digital trust layer for the EU’s cross-border health services.
These trends signal a future where blockchain doesn’t just sit next to healthcare systems; it becomes part of how trust, compliance, and coordination are built in by default.
This isn’t about experimenting with new tech; It’s about designing healthcare systems where verifiability, privacy, and interoperability are foundational, not afterthoughts.
Let’s look at where this shift is already delivering real results. Here are the blockchain use cases in healthcare that aren’t just working, they’re strategically solving problems legacy systems couldn’t.
Real-World Blockchain Applications in Healthcare
Blockchain is finding its foothold in healthcare not by replacing legacy infrastructure, but by solving high-friction, multi-party coordination problems that traditional systems weren’t built for.
The most effective applications so far are not end-to-end overhauls, but modular integrations where verifiability, interoperability, and auditability are structurally required.
Below, we explore the use cases where blockchain is not just functional, but strategically valuable, backed by results and grounded in real-world complexity.
NHS Turns to Blockchain for Tamper-Proof Medical Record Integrity
The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) faced persistent issues around unauthorised data access, poor auditability, and difficulty ensuring the integrity of medical records across distributed systems.
In partnership with Guardtime, the NHS piloted a blockchain-based Keyless Signature Infrastructure (KSI) that acts as an integrity layer across digital health records.
Rather than storing data on-chain, the system records hash-based proofs, enabling real-time tamper detection without compromising privacy.
Results:
- Reduced risk of insider tampering with audit logs
- Faster breach detection due to instant verification
- Enabled compliance with data integrity mandates under GDPR
BurstIQ Gives Employees Ownership Over Their Health Data
Employers and insurers often lack secure, consent-based access to comprehensive employee health data, leading to fragmented care, inefficient benefits management, and privacy concerns.
BurstIQ created a blockchain-based platform that enables individuals to own and share verifiable health data with trusted entities (e.g., employers, wellness apps) under strict, programmable consent conditions.
Results:
- Enabled HIPAA-compliant employee wellness analytics across 3 pilot companies
- Reduced manual consent paperwork
- Provided employers with actionable population health insights without direct data access
Solve.Care Bridges the Gaps in Global Telehealth Services
Coordinating global telehealth services, especially for chronic care, was hampered by siloed patient records, poor identity verification, and misaligned incentives between providers.
Solve.Care used blockchain to link healthcare providers, payers, and patients into shared “Care Administration Networks.”
These networks used smart contracts to coordinate payments, track referrals, and verify care events in a decentralised model.
Results:
- Reduced appointment scheduling conflicts
- Enabled real-time care verification in cross-border consultations
- Used in collaborations with Arizona Care Network and Lyft for patient transportation
Clinical Trial Logistics Get a Transparency Upgrade with Chronicled
Clinical trials often suffer from poor visibility into lab supplies, causing delays, compliance risks, and coordination breakdowns between sponsors, labs, and logistics providers.
Chronicled and The LinkLab developed a blockchain platform using the MediLedger protocol to track temperature-sensitive drugs, equipment, and trial materials from origin to administration.
Results:
- Improved end-to-end supply traceability across trial phases
- Reduced mismatch and over-shipment events by 22%
- Enabled automated validation of shipment conditions for regulatory compliance
Each of these use cases demonstrates more than functional capability; they reflect a broader paradigm shift in healthcare: from systems that document what already happened, to systems that prove what’s happening in real time.
Blockchain doesn’t solve every problem. But where trust, auditability, and coordination are failing, it’s proving to be the missing layer the industry has been trying to patch for decades.
Building Healthcare Systems That Can Be Trusted
Blockchain is no longer on the sidelines of healthcare; it’s becoming the invisible infrastructure where trust, coordination, and compliance intersect.
From pharma supply chains and clinical trials to consent management and patient-controlled records, it’s already solving problems that traditional systems couldn’t.
What’s next? We’ll see blockchain embedded in national health stacks, powering verifiable AI pipelines, and enabling cross-border data sharing without compromising privacy.
Patients will carry cryptographically signed health credentials, and regulators will audit clinical workflows in real time, without manual backlogs.
This shift isn’t about disruption; it’s about designing systems that prove what happened, not just record it.
Healthcare doesn’t need more apps. It needs infrastructure that can be trusted across silos, borders, and institutions. Blockchain is emerging as that layer, not replacing what exists, but strengthening it where it fails most.
At Lampros Tech, we help organisations navigate this shift by bridging the gap by designing and building modular, blockchain-powered infrastructure.
Whether you're exploring pilot programs or scaling infrastructure, we’re here to help build what’s next.
Astha Baheti
Growth Lead
