Guides · 2 September 2026 · About 20 minutes

How to set up Medical ID and emergency contacts on an iPhone and Apple Watch

It takes twenty minutes, it is free, and almost nobody has done it. If your mother is found on the pavement by a stranger, this is the difference between a locked rectangle of glass and a page that says who she is, what she takes, and who to ring.

Medical ID is a page Apple builds into the Health app. Set up properly, it can be read from a locked iPhone and from a locked Apple Watch by someone who has never met your parent and does not know the passcode. Nothing about it is clever. It is simply a form, and the reason it fails is that the form is usually empty.

Do this with your parent rather than for them. It is their health information and their address book, and there are decisions in here — who gets called, what gets disclosed — that are genuinely theirs to make.

Step 1. Gather the facts before you touch the phone

Typing this in while trying to remember dosages is how the field ends up saying "some blood pressure tablets". Sit down with:

• The repeat prescription slip or the pharmacy printout — it has exact drug names and doses.
• Allergies, and what actually happens. "Penicillin — rash" and "penicillin — anaphylaxis" are very different pieces of information.
• Ongoing conditions, plus anything implanted: pacemaker, stent, replacement joint, insulin pump.
• Blood type, only if it is genuinely known from a record. Do not guess. A wrong blood type is worse than a blank field.
• The names and mobile numbers of the two or three people who should be contacted, and who lives closest.

Step 2. Open Medical ID

On the iPhone: open Health, tap the profile picture in the top right, tap Medical ID, then Edit. On recent iOS versions you can also get there from Settings under Health. If the phone has never had a Health profile, it will ask for date of birth first — put the real one in; several age-dependent behaviours on the watch key off it.

Step 3. Fill in the medical fields, briefly

A responder reads this in seconds, standing up, in bad light. Write like a label, not like a letter.

• Medical Conditions. The two or three that would change how someone treats her. "Type 2 diabetes. Atrial fibrillation. Early-stage dementia — may be disoriented but is not confused about her own name."
• Medical Notes. The free-text field, and the most useful one. Use it for things a form has no box for: "Deaf in left ear — speak to her right side." "Lives alone. Front door key in the key safe by the meter, code with neighbour at number 14." "Has an advance decision; copy with her GP."
• Allergies & Reactions. Drug allergies first, then food or latex.
• Medications. Name, dose, frequency. Include anticoagulants prominently — they matter enormously after a fall.
• Blood Type, Organ Donation, Weight, Height. Fill in what is known and leave the rest blank.

What to leave out: anything that is embarrassing rather than clinically useful, and anything your parent does not want a stranger to read. This page is visible to anyone holding the phone. That trade-off is hers to make, and asking her about it is not a formality — it is the same conversation as agreeing what family gets to see.

Step 4. Add emergency contacts

Still in Edit, scroll to Emergency Contacts and tap add emergency contact. They must already exist in the address book. Pick the relationship from the list — a responder reading "daughter" acts differently from one reading "friend".

Three rules that are learned the hard way:

1. Order by proximity, not by seniority. The first contact should be whoever can be at the house in twenty minutes. The son in another country goes second.
2. Use mobile numbers that are answered. A landline that rings in an empty kitchen is not an emergency contact.
3. Tell the people you have listed. Being named without knowing it means the call arrives from an unknown number at three in the morning and goes to voicemail.

Emergency contacts are also the list Apple Watch and iPhone can notify after an Emergency SOS call is placed, on supported models and in supported regions. What is and isn't available varies by watchOS and iOS version and by country, so check Apple's own description for the devices in front of you rather than assuming.

Step 5. Turn on the two switches that make it work

At the bottom of the edit screen there are two toggles, and an empty Medical ID with these off helps nobody:

• Show When Locked. Puts the Medical ID behind the Emergency button on the lock screen, readable without the passcode. Turn it on.
• Share During Emergency Call. Where supported, this shares the Medical ID with emergency services when an emergency call is placed from the device. Availability varies by region.

Tap Done. Nothing saves until you do.

Step 6. Check it reached the Apple Watch

Medical ID comes from the same Health profile, so it appears on the paired watch without re-entering anything. Two things to confirm on the watch itself:

• Wrist Detection is on (in the Watch app on the iPhone, under Passcode). Several safety behaviours depend on it, and turning it off to avoid entering a passcode is a common and costly shortcut.
• The Medical ID is reachable. Press and hold the side button on the watch until the sliders appear; Medical ID sits among them. Slide it and read what a paramedic would read.

While you are in there, it is worth confirming fall detection is configured the way your parent wants — and understanding what it does and does not do before you rely on it. The rest of the watch handover is covered in setting up an Apple Watch for a parent who isn't into tech.

Step 7. Test it, without dialling anyone

Lock the iPhone. Swipe up to the passcode screen, tap Emergency, then Medical ID. Read it as a stranger would. Is the medication legible? Does it say who to call?

Then rehearse the SOS gesture without completing it. On the watch, press and hold the side button until the sliders appear — and stop there, before the countdown completes. On the iPhone, know that holding the side button with a volume button brings up the same sliders. Practising the shape of the action matters; actually placing the call does not, and wastes a dispatcher's time.

If your parent uses a wallet or handbag, put a card in it with the same information. Phones get left in the other room, and a paper card needs no battery.

Step 8. Diarise a review

Medication changes. People move. Put a recurring reminder in your own calendar for every six months, and add a rule: re-check it after any hospital admission, because that is exactly when the drug list changes and exactly when nobody thinks to update a phone.

Where this sits

Medical ID is passive. It helps someone who has already found your parent. It does not tell you anything, and it does not raise an alarm. That is a different job, and it is the one ElderGuard Link does — watching the watch's readings and telling the family when something changes, or when readings stop arriving at all. The two are complements, and Medical ID is the one that costs nothing and takes an afternoon.