Today, blockchain no longer rates as a hot buzzword. But its absence from headlines belies the fact that blockchain is more important in 2020 than ever before. Leaving the bitcoin association completely out of the equation, the blockchain paradigm now underpins the best hopes for future function in the increasingly complex and digitalized business world globally.

At a fundamental level, blockchain was developed to be an irrefutable database and log for distributed exchange and reconciliation. The ability to digitally establish and manage trust and transactions among multitudes of far-flung individuals and/or organizations is blockchain’s source of power. It is no wonder, then, that trades as divergent as journalism and diamond sales have turned to blockchain infrastructure to retool business practices and operations for the modern age.

The healthcare sector is no exception. Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of investment and experimentation on how to best use blockchain technology to alleviate serious choke points and inefficiencies hampering U.S. healthcare modernization.