Most people don’t realise it, but in an emergency your smartphone could be the thing that saves your life.
In 2015, an emergency room doctor shared an invaluable piece of advice for iPhone users, which has since been shared 163,500 times.
According to Dr Julia Thompson, the Medical ID function – which is found in the free “Health” app – is a simple way to inform hospital staff of your medical history, and put them in touch with your next-of-kin.
“I didn’t even realise this when I got my own iPhone!” she wrote in the viral post.
“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!”
Here are five easy-to-follow steps to getting it up and running on your own iPhone:
How to find your Medical ID.
And its not just iPhone users who can benefit from Dr Thompson’s advice – she also included instructions for Android phones, which have an app called ICE (in case of emergency) that works similarly.
For those who don’t like apps, you can also add your emergency details under “owner information” and tick the “show owner information on lock screen”.
“Newer androids also have health details in the emergency information so no excuses not to have your information on hand,” she wrote.
“It could save your life.”
So, what are you waiting for?
