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iOS 8 How-to: Create the Medical ID

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New in iOS 8 you are able to create a Medical ID in the Health App. Even though the rest of the Health app is down, the Medical ID is fully functioning. The Medical ID is important because in case of an emergency, medical responders can look at your phone and know any allergies or medical conditions you have and know who to contact for you without unlocking your phone. To continue to make a Medical ID, press the word Create Medical ID in red.

In order to have a Medical ID you need to have Show When Locked turned on so it will be available to be used on the lock screen. Then there are places for you to include a picture of yourself, your name, birthdate, medical conditions, medical notes, allergies and reactions, medications, put in emergency contact, add blood type, specify whether or not you are an organ donor, and put in your height and weight. When putting in an emergency contact you can denote the relationship of that person to you. To save the information you have entered press on the word Done in white in the upper right hand corner.

People will not be able to get into your phone when you have a passcode on it. They won’t even be able to make a phone call to the person you call the most frequently on your phone. However, by pressing on the word Emergency in the lower left hand corner, they will be able to call 911 for the emergency. New, they can press on the word Medical ID in the lower left hand corner, and it will display your medical information. Here the person can call the people you listed in case of an emergency.

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Comments

  1. I had a question about Medical ID: Once you fill out the Medical ID emergency contact card on iOS 8, is it saved to your iCloud account. i.e. If I setup a new iPhone in the future, will the exact same Medical ID show up again or will I have to re-fill it out manually each time I change iPhone or reset my iPhone?

    • Sarah Guarino - 10 years ago

      In my experience if you are setting the phone up as NEW you do have to recreate the Medical ID. The screenshots for my article were done on my iPhone 4S a couple of days ago. When I set up my iPhone 6 as new nothing displayed in the Health app.

      My understanding is that if you were to do a restore of a backup from iCloud since it is encrypted the Medical ID will be brought down. Or if you were to do an encrypted backup to iTunes on the computer, and restore from that, you will get the Medical ID.

      • Sarah, thanks for your quick reply. I really wanted to dig through this issue and have gotten different answers here and there. I’m still waiting for my iPhone 6 and didn’t want to do a a fresh restore on my 5S just to test this.

        Anyways, I actually decided to take it upon me to ask an Apple Support Chat guy the question, and again I’m getting conflicting reports: can you verify what he said about the Contacts to be true? Here are the screenshots: http://nicolaselhani.tumblr.com

    • Jamie Barlow (@_JamieB) - 10 years ago

      From what I’ve seen, it doesn’t seem to; keep in mind though that I was doing ‘fresh’ installs of the various iOS betas, not the final product so it may have changed since then. I hope so. It’s a bit of a pain having to input the information every time.

    • taoprophet420 - 10 years ago

      Works fine with iCloud backuo.

      Hopefully ambulance services and other first aid responders are teaching employees how to use this.

  2. gizmoholicz - 10 years ago

    Good information !

  3. Cover Heishman (@iCoverH) - 10 years ago

    If you do not have a passcode lock on your phone, how would medical personnel find your Medical ID without finding the Health app and looking it up that way?

    • Jon Stahler (@JonStahler) - 10 years ago

      This is specifically addressed in the article with screenshots. First sentence of the second paragraph. Here, I’ll copy and paste it for you for your convenience: “In order to have a Medical ID you need to have Show When Locked turned on so it will be available to be used on the lock screen. “

      • Jon Stahler (@JonStahler) - 10 years ago

        Aaaaand my reading comprehension sucks. That’s totally not what you asked. Sorry for being an ass.

    • dcj001 - 10 years ago

      If there is no Touch ID and/or passcode, if someone knows what he is doing, he can press the home button for a second, ask Siri – “Health,” and, when the Health app opens, the Medical ID is shown in the Health app. Or someone can search for the Health app manually.

  4. Kyle Widdowfield - 10 years ago

    It’s a real shame that HealthKit wasn’t released for iPad… I literally carry my iPad around with me every minute of every day :(

  5. Don Wise (@doncwise) - 10 years ago

    I entered my weight and it said “Liar”; no, really this is pretty cool.

  6. Uccello - 10 years ago

    Of course, Health doesn’t appear on iPad installations of iOS 8 and the Medical ID feature doesn’t appear for installations in the iPod Touch (5th gen). Rather pointless for the mute/Deaf/HOH community members that don’t use an iPhone.

    • standardpull - 10 years ago

      Health is also pointless for other community members that don’t use an iPhone, regardless of the type of disability they have. It isn’t just the mute, the deaf, or the hard-of-hearing.

      • Uccello - 10 years ago

        As a mute, “my” community came to mind. If I could speak, sure, I’d have an iPhone. But I don’t speak so I used the other iDevices. I’m sure there are many that would like the benefits of the Health app but for some reason or other don’t have an iPhone.

    • Mr. Grey (@mister_grey) - 10 years ago

      I’m not mute/Deaf/HOH but I also think this is a big misstep by Apple. A lot of us don’t have a phone or just want to use an iPad. There is no reason the Health App couldn’t be on the iPad.

      In my case, the iPad is the only device I have with a M7 chip to collect the data, but it’s the one device I can’t use with the Health App.

      I think the Watch should also be set to work with the iPads, but so far it appears that it will not.

  7. This is a security risk if anyone has quick access to your phone without permission. What Apple should do to limit this risk is only show Medical ID info *after* 911 has been called. That would increase likelihood that the info was accessed for the correct reasons, and it would discourage anyone from attempting to access it for the wrong reasons.

    • border1ine - 10 years ago

      That wouldn’t work, because in some situations someone else calls 911. For example, you witness an accident and there is someone injured, you are not going to use their phone to call 911.

    • I thought the same thing right after setting it up. Especially with the Emergency Contact set up.

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  9. prestonjb - 10 years ago

    I would recommend wearing a medical alert bracelet.

    If in a car accident or other and the phone is smashed or runs out of juice it is useless to EMT.

    I wear an alert bracelet all the time esp with my long distance cycling. It contains emergency contacts and medical info…

    Not everything should be stored only in electronic form!

  10. Michael Paine - 10 years ago

    I have an ICE entry in the address book (In case of emergency) but that is of no use to emergency personnel if the phone is locked. This new optional Medical ID feature seems good. Not sure if we will have the Health app available in Australia any time soon though.

  11. herb02135go - 10 years ago

    Years ago, I asked my doctor about my blood type. He said there was no reason for me to know it, as any provider would test my blood before giving me blood.

    This brings to mind the need for a consumer to share medical info/history with others, such as through a smartphone app.

    I think consumers need to balance the risks vs the needs.
    Personally, I’d sooner post a Social Security number before I’d post health information.

    But if it makes you feel better …

    • As a Phlebotomist, I can tell you that no one will ever provide blood without testing first. Transfusion reactions can be deadly. A Doctor isn’t going to risk it on “Oh! I think it was A, or was it B? I’ll put AB then they’ll know it’s one of the two …”

  12. Dan (@danmdan) - 10 years ago

    Calling 911 is of no use in many non-US parts of the world – it is 999 in England. And frankly if anyone finds you ill and incapable of action they are just as likely to steal your expensive iPhone as call for help with it !

  13. Marklewood at Serenity Lodge - 10 years ago

    I agree . . . and am disappointed that the Health app is not on the iPad. It’s so much easier to enter information and find it there. It should be an app that is cross-device, i.e. on all my Apple devices. Certainly more important to me than music.

  14. Jenny Weyman - 9 years ago

    Be wary that the default position for “blood type’ may not be your actual blood type! If you don’t know your blood type you are unable to leave it blank.

  15. 2labsmom - 9 years ago

    I set up my medical id on my iPhone. It is set to show on lock screen, but when I click on emergency there is no Medical ID showing on the screen anywhere. Just the numbers to dial a phone call. Can anyone tell me why?