If you've got an iPhone, here's a handy app you'll most definitely want to install, one that could potentially save your life. This health app, contains an important feature called Medical ID. You're probably already familiar with the 'In Case of Emergency' (ICE) practice, which collects important contact information on your phone so that it may be used to contact family in the event of an emergency - well, Apple's Medical ID is basically an enhanced version of ICE. This feature provides both emergency contact information, and also informs first responders and medical personnel of important health information, such as your medications, medical conditions, blood type and allergies.

Setting Up

Here's how to set up Medical ID on your iPhone:

Note: To take advantage of this nifty feature, your phone needs to run on iOS 8.

1. To get started, launch the Health app.

2. Tap the Medical ID icon, located at the bottom-right of your screen.

3. Tap Edit on the top-right corner of your screen

4. Change or update your name, photo, birth date and input any important medical information.

5. The fields available will allow you to list any medical conditions, allergies, and current medications. You also have a blank field for general medical notes - such as your preferred hospital or doctor, or any religious requests.

6. Further down, you can add multiple emergency contacts, which must be included in your already existing iPhone contacts. If your ICE contact is not in your phone book, they must be added prior to proceeding.

7. In the process of selecting your contacts, the Medical ID app, will ask you to identify your relationship with the person. With this in mind, should you rather not mention how this contact person is connected to you, you may simply put 'other' or 'emergency'.

8. Below the contacts section is another field, whereby you can add your blood type, height, weight and your organ donor preference.

9. Once you have completed the information, just tap Done at the top of the screen to save your changes.

Accessing Medical ID

Once all your important medical information and emergency contacts have been stored in your iPhone's Medical ID, here's how someone can access this information in the event of an emergency.

For safety reasons, your iPhone should be secure, meaning that it should have a passcode or Touch ID, prohibiting others from entering your phone. Despite this, the Medical ID can still be accessed from a locked screen.

Just tap Emergency on the bottom-left of the iPhone lock screen, allowing anyone without a passcode to make an emergency phone call. Then tap Medical ID, which will bring up a screen showing the information you entered previously. Anyone accessing your Medical ID can tap on any of your emergency contacts and call them directly.

What if you don't have an iPhone?

This app has yet to be introduced to android users, in which case, it is wise to mark or create a separate folder for your ICE contacts.

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