Checking updates on nearby blocks from a controller block?

TL;DR: How can I make a block update data whenever one block of a specific list of blocks forming a structure updates? 

I have an idea for a structure that will store "health": it's a structure made of vanilla blocks (like, say, a villager house) that has a central controller. I want the controller to update its health data every time a player breaks one of the component blocks, but I don't know what approach I should take for this. One possibility is to create a multi block structure, with a controller and different parts (which would take many tile entities, and as far as I know, that's not very desirable), but this also gives me the problem of not using vanilla blocks. Of course, I could just make the multiblock parts take the vanilla textures, but that probably wouldn't be ideal. Is there a way to do this only using only one tile entity? How would I come about "marking" certain blocks around the controller so that they would send updates every time they're broken? 

Thanks!

Edited March 22, 20205 yr by SSilvamc