How To Turn on Medical ID on iPhone’s Emergency Screen

Julia Thompson, an emergency room doctor, has a helpful tip for iPhone users that could improve everyone’s safety. She shared her suggestion with a post on Facebook,

Working as a doctor in a public hospital and seeing patients in ED all the time I see many patients come in and we have had no way of knowing who they are or how to contact their next of kin or their medical history! And their phones are locked!

But many people don’t realise that you and patients can set up something called a “Medical ID” on your iPhone if you have the health app (free with phone). I didn’t even realise this when I got my own iPhone!

This information can be accessed even while the phone is locked by clicking on the emergency options and can display things like name, DOB, emergency contacts, medical conditions and even blood type and donor status. You can even add notes.

It can be managed by clicking on the little “Health” app that comes default on the phone (heart icon and then in the app go to the little star shape with medical ID) and given everyone I have spoken to today has never heard of it it seemed like a social media share kind of moment!

But don’t simply share it-update yours also!!

Here is how you can turn it on.

Open the Health app on your iPhone. It’s a built-in app that you can find in your Built-in apps folder if it’s not on your home screen.

Then follow the instruction on the screen to set up some basic info about yourself. Make sure the option “Show When Locked” option is turned on.

Now, let’s test it out. On the lock screen, click Emergency at the bottom of the screen to get in the Emergency screen where you will see a new link called Medical ID displayed at the bottom of the screen in red.

clicking on it will display the information about yourself on the screen without logging into your phone. It could be a huge help to the emergency clue when an emergency unfortunately happens.