Setup emergency contact and medical information on your phone
During a serious emergency, basic information about who you are and your medical needs can be extremely useful. Both Android and iOS devices have the ability to allow people to access your medical information in an emergency, including…
- Who you are
- Your emergency contact
- Blood type
- Allergies
- Medications
- and many more!
To prove definitively if this is worth doing I googled it…and found some Reddit threads asking medical professionals if they ever access this information — or find it useful. The answers range from "no" to "all the time".1 2 3 4 5
Also, there seems to be a lot of people using it to return lost phones, so that's nice.
So, given that it will only take a few minutes and could help you avoid death or even the loss of a loved one (your phone), it's probably worth setting up.
Make sure you don't leave the allergies or medication sections blank. Even if you don't have any allergies, that can be useful information too. Simply write No known allergies.
How to setup medical ID on iPhone
- Open
Settings - Navigate to
Health. The app with the heart icon. - Select
Medical ID - Select
Edit - Fill out the form with relevant information
- Switch on
Show when lockedto allow access to your medical information if you're not able to unlock your phone yourself.
How to setup Medical Info on Android
- Open
Settings - Navigate to
Safety and Emergency - Select
Medical Info - Select
Edit - Fill out the form with the relevant information
- Switch on
Show info when lockedto allow access to your medical information if you're not able to unlock your phone yourself.