Research
Researching the unmet needs, value proposition, key considerations for implementation, as well as different use cases in decentralized health data management, is critical to advance our mission. Please find below the list of publications authored or co-authored by Etheros HealthData Foundation.
2025: Decentralized AI in Healthcare: From Theory to Practice
Healthcare stands at a transformative crossroads. As AI becomes central to medical innovation, a fundamental question emerges: who controls the data, infrastructure, and governance that power these technologies? This comprehensive report examines how decentralized AI (dAI) is moving from theory to practice across global healthcare systems.
Key Findings
The Current State (2025):
10 million projected healthcare worker shortage by 2030
Unsustainable costs and fragmented care delivery
Regulatory barriers to traditional centralized data aggregation
dAI emerging as complementary approach, not replacement
What We Discovered:
Hybrid architectures outperform pure decentralization – successful implementations balance local autonomy with coordinated governance
Governance investment equals technical investment – organizations require 2-3 years developing legal frameworks before operational deployment
Four convergent forces driving adoption: technological maturation, regulatory mandates, economic imperatives, and societal shifts toward patient empowerment
Report Structure
Chapter 1: Setting the Stage – Healthcare’s inflection point and forces driving decentralization
Chapter 2: Foundational Framework – Technical foundations across three pillars: decentralized data management, compute & control, and governance
Chapter 3: Decentralized Data Collection & Processing – How organizations collect and process health data while maintaining privacy
MELLODDY Consortium (Europe): 10 competing pharma companies collaborate on drug discovery via federated learning across 1.3+ billion data points
Mayo Clinic Platform (USA): “Data Behind Glass” enables 81 developers to analyze 45+ million patient records without raw data leaving Mayo’s infrastructure
SEOVE – Cadeia de Cuidados (Brazil): Federated care coordination for domestic violence survivors in resource-constrained settings
Acoer Clinical Trials Platform (USA): Blockchain-based immutable audit trails on Hedera Hashgraph
Chapter 4: Decentralized Model Development & Training – AI models trained using decentralized computational infrastructure
DeepSeek R1/VL (China): Open-source sovereign AI deployed across 100+ Chinese hospitals with complete local data control
Akash Network & Aethir (Global): Decentralized GPU marketplaces offering up to 85% cost savings versus traditional cloud
Bittensor (Global): Open marketplace for collaboratively training AI models through incentivized contribution
ASI Alliance (Singapore/UK): Autonomous agents coordinating multi-domain medical reasoning
Chapter 5: Decentralized Validation & Deployment – Transitioning AI systems to production environments
VitaDAO (Switzerland): DAO governing longevity research—10,000+ community members directing $4.1M across 22+ projects via blockchain voting
Changi General Hospital’s AimSG (Singapore): National-scale AI deployment with local hospital processing and coordinated national oversight
Chapter 6: Future Directions & Strategic Recommendations – Five-year trajectory analysis and stakeholder-specific guidance through 2030
Research Methodology
Systematic literature review following PRISMA 2020 guidelines (87 peer-reviewed studies, January 2023-March 2025)
10 detailed case studies across five continents with standardized analytical framework
6 expert interviews with clinical leaders, legal experts, entrepreneurs, and patient advocates
Complementary desk research on regulatory frameworks (GDPR, HIPAA, PIPL, EU AI Act)
About the Authors
Produced through collaboration between Etheros HealthData Foundation (US nonprofit enabling patient data ownership) and Crypto Valley Association’s Sustainability Working Group (Switzerland’s leading blockchain ecosystem).
Co-authors: Carmen Cucul (Blockchain & AI Healthcare Consultant, 15+ years pharma), Antonio Pesqueira (Doctoral candidate, Technology & Healthcare Operations), LeiLei Tang (Medical Affairs consultant, former Takeda Global Medical Lead), Natalia Sofia (Pharmacist & Data Ecosystem Lead), Stephanie Fuchs (Swiss/Liechtenstein tax advisor, blockchain specialist), Thomas Egelhof (Chief Radiologist, 30+ years clinical expertise).
Who Should Read This Report
✓ Healthcare executives evaluating strategic AI investments
✓ Technology leaders building decentralized infrastructure
✓ Policymakers developing regulatory frameworks
✓ Patient advocates championing data sovereignty
✓ Research institutions establishing federated networks
2024: “Decentralized Health Data Management: An overview of solutions empowering individuals to own, share and benefit from their health data”
- In partnership with CryptoValley Association, Switzerland
- Authors: Carmen Cucul, Hui Huang, Lu Zheng, Thomas Egelhof
Currently, over 30% of all data generated globally pertains to healthcare. Unfortunately, most health data is siloed, unstructured and not shared beyond its primary use. This makes the healthcare system less efficient, accessible, equitable and affordable than it otherwise would be.
In a promising development, the emergence of health and wellness applications, wearables, and decentralized technologies like blockchain have begun to empower individuals with ownership, sharing capabilities, and the opportunity to derive value from their health data.
Store their health data, encompassing information from wearables, patient reported outcomes (PROs), medical records, laboratory results and more
Share aforementioned health data to chosen entities, whether they be researchers, healthcare professionals, friends and family or others
Benefit from sharing their data, potentially through rewards such as tokens, badges, or access to discounted or complimentary value-adding products or services
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