Millions of people live with illnesses that may leave them unaware or render them unable to speak clearly. If that happens when someone familiar with the condition isn’t around, first aiders can waste valuable time trying to determine the cause.
Your smartphone can access a wealth of useful and potentially lifesaving health advice. It can advise you on your diet, track your fitness, and help you schedule medical appointments. But did you know it can also help in an emergency? If you are unable to make an immediate call, they make emergency contact and medical information available even when your phone is locked.
These features are especially important if you have a chronic condition or an allergy. In the event of an accident you might not be able to warn anyone of your drug allergies or medical conditions.
In Case of Emergencies (ICE) features are included in most modern smartphones, but you need to make sure they are activated. By setting up SOS notifications and keeping your emergency contacts up to date you could receive life saving support and assistance quicker.
Update your Medical ID on the iPhone
If you have a medical condition that emergency services may be aware of, it’s a smart idea to set up a Medical ID on your iPhone. The Medical ID is a free, built-in feature that might save your life in an emergency.
It is quick and simple to create your Medical ID. Simply launch the Health App and choose Medical ID >> Create Medical ID.
If you have never used the Health App before, your phone will prompt you to create a Health Profile with basic information like your full name, date of birth, gender, height, and weight. After you have done that you can carry on creating a Medical ID by choosing Medical ID from the profile menu in the top right of the screen.
The Create medical ID option will now ask you to enter your medical conditions, allergies, prescriptions, blood type and more. You can also tell it if you are a registered organ donor. One of the most important features is the aility to nominate your emergency contacts, sot (obviously) make sure you keep them up to date!
Activating In Case of Emergency Features on Android
The instructions for adding emergency info to your lock screen can cary depending on your phone and the version of Android you are using, but these instructions shoudl apply to most recent Android phones.
Open Settings > About phone > Emergency information. If you can’t find this option try settings > users and accounts > emergency information.
Choose the info you want to share on your phone lock screen.
To update your medical records: choose Edit information. If that option is not available, look for an option labelled “data”.
To add an Emergency contact press “Add contact” or “Contacts”. This uses entries from your Android address book, so when you update a persons contact details it should be changed here automatically.
Once you have updated your info you can check it works by locking your phone and swiping up. Choose “emergency information”, and when the screen flashes press it again to confirm.
How safe is my medical information?
That’s a good question – all phone manufacturers store your usage information. However, such personal information. While it may be backed up to an online location, we don’t think anyone is actively reading it us using it for things like advertising.
Nevertheless, you should make sure that you only shshare what you are comfortable with people knowing. After all, anyone who just picks your phone up can read the information you have made available.
Don’t just rely on your phone
If you are living with a medical condition then you probably know this already, but if you are looking out for someone else you might not. Medical responders in the UK are trained to look for ID tag bracelets or necklaces that contain important medical information. They could contain information about allergies or intolerances, or a condition like diabetes. They are also very useful
You should definitely update your phone with your latest information as well, but don’t neglect the basics, just in case your phone isn’t functional or can’t be found. You can get medical ID tags from a wide range of places – even Amazon: Medical alert tags on Amazon Prime. They come in all shapes and sizes, from small plates that can be engraved to secure cylinders that contain your medical history on a soll of paper.