Advances in computer communication technology have enabled the rapid growth of e-health services for delivering healthcare, such as facilitating online consent and data sharing between patients and health professionals. Developing a patient-centric healthcare system is challenging because by necessity, it should be secure, reliable, and resilient to cyber threats, whilst remaining user-friendly. Key to any development aiming for a refined proof-of-concept (PoC) system is the pursuit of comprehensive public system testing and evaluation. This paper focuses on the methodology and results obtained from the participatory approach adopted by the EU H2020 project Serums to evaluate and demonstrate the effectiveness of a smart healthcare system based on emergent technologies like blockchain, data lake, and multi-factor authentication. We discuss the challenges faced by remote PoC system evaluations with end-users as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic.