I was having dinner with my mom recently when she showed me a piece of paper that she carries in her wallet with all her important emergency information, contacts and medications she takes. Not a great idea for lots of reasons; paper can get lost, the ink can become illegible or a stranger would not know to look for it in an emergency. I told her a much better way to store all of this important information would be in her iPhone Health app, which can be made accessible to others who might be trying to use your phone to help you or contact your loved ones in an emergency. She had no idea it even existed.
It got me thinking, how many other people don’t know about this great, potentially life-saving tip?!! So I’m going to share it with all of you in the hopes that someday, it will help save a life.
If you were ever to become incapacitated and unable to communicate important information about yourself, there is an easy way to store emergency information right in your iPhone and have it accessible to anyone trying to help you, while still keeping your phone secure and locked.
Most people know they can track their steps in the iPhone Health app, but it can also store important medical information about you like prescriptions you take, medical conditions, allergies, blood type and emergency contacts. Once this info is filled out, it becomes easily accessible through the Emergency link on the bottom of your iPhone’s lock screen.
If you’re like most people, you probably have your phone secured with a passcode or Face ID lock. If so, then from the home screen if someone other than you tries to access your phone they get the lock screen. If you have your *Medical Id filled out in the iPhone Health App, then anyone trying to access your phone will see your *Medical ID link after clicking the Emergency link on the bottom left corner of the lock screen. Once they click on it, all your medical information will be viewable while the rest of your phone’s info remains locked and secure. This link will only appear once you’ve entered your info in iPhone’s Health app. See screen shot below for sample of what it looks like when accessed from the lock screen (info listed is just a sample and not my actual info).
Open the Health app and look at the bottom right corner. You will see *Medical Id. Click on this, then look for the Edit button up on the top right. After you click edit, you’ll then be able to enter any information about yourself that you want to share, along with being able to choose which contacts will be shown as emergency contacts.
First, you’ll want to make sure that the button is green for Show On Lock Screen, otherwise no one will see your *Medical Id info. Next, enter your Name and Birthday.
After that, you can list all your current Medical Conditions. This would be a good spot to list things like Allergies, Diabetes, Epilepsy, Hemophilia, High/Low Blood Pressure, Pacemaker, Cancer, etc. The next section is for Medical Notes. This would be a good spot to list any past surgeries, broken bones etc. Next, is a spot for Medications. It’s a good idea to not only list all the mediations you take, but also the dosages and frequency.
Scroll down and you can include your Blood Type, Height, Weight and if you’re an Organ Donor. Lastly, you can select which contacts from your address book will be listed as Emergency Contacts. You can also list who they are. There are lots of titles to choose from. After you’ve entered all your info, click Done at the top right corner.
This info is now saved and accessible from your phone’s lock screen! See how easy that is?! Anyone with an iPhone really needs to know how to access this on someone else’s phone and how to enter this information into their own phone. It could mean the difference between life or death for someone. Please share this tip with all your friends and family who have iPhones, so that more people will know how they can help in an emergency.