It’s not so long ago that idea of a doctor monitoring their patients from anywhere in the world belonged in science fiction — but here in New Oban, with Invertech’s innovative telehealth system, it's become a reality. Not only invaluable for care and monitoring in chronic health conditions, the 6mm subdermal chip provides information on work-life balance, daily stressors and healthy living, painting a holistic picture of each service user’s needs.

Looking at the 6mm chip in innovator Miles Cowden’s hand, it’s hard to imagine so much functionality in such a tiny package. “The beauty of it,” Cowden tells me, “is that the body collects all this information for us already. All the Inverchip does is listen and integrate the information into an output our computers can process. Using that information, our doctors can analyse the unique patterns of your health and lifestyle, and create a tailored wellness program designed to improve and maintain your wellbeing for the future.

The potential loss of privacy doesn’t seem to concern the entrepreneur. “The data it captures is no different to what your doctor would write down a routine health-check — it’s just there’s more of it, that’s all. Our data-security is world class, and while that’s not an absolute guarantee that it’ll never get into the wrong hands, our encryption means any hacker would spend so long trying to get the data into a comprehensible format that it’d be long out of date by the time they managed.”

But the real potential is on a population scale. “With widespread use of the Inverchip, we’re in a situation where we’re receiving continual information — literally beat-by-beat data on thousands, tens of thousands, maybe one day millions of people. We can compare different populations, analyse by demographic, even look at the effects of health interventions on a national scale. It’s going to revolutionise public health and epidemiology forever.

”As part of a staged pilot scheme, Invertech will be offering implantation of Inverchips to all New Oban residents, along with a free 24 month pass to their TeleHealth system. If you miss out on the pilot, then you’ll have to wait — but it’s clear from talking to its inventor that full-scale implementation isn’t far behind.