A useful feature in the iOS Health app that you may not be aware of is the ability to store your “Medical ID” for emergency purposes, including emergency contact information, medical conditions, allergies, medications, blood type, and more. This is all setup from the “Medical ID” tab in the Health app, and is designed to be accessed from the iPhone lock screen or Apple Watch in the event of an emergency. The Medical ID can be accessed from an iPhone Lock Screen by bringing up the passcode entry screen, tapping the “Emergency” button at the top, and then tapping the “Medical ID” icon that appears in the bottom left corner. Calls can even be placed to emergency contacts right from this screen with a single tap. If you don’t want your Medical ID available from the lock screen, you can just turn off the “Show When Locked” setting at the top of the Medical ID editing screen.
If you’ve got a Touch ID device with iOS 10, however, you may not realize exactly how to find this — you can’t swipe to unlock in iOS 10 anymore, and pressing the Home button with a Touch ID enabled finger will take you right into your device, bypassing the passcode entry screen. Despite this, the passcode entry screen is still accessible by pressing the Home button with a finger that is not registered for Touch ID, which is presumably what somebody else would be doing if they found your iPhone in the event of an emergency. While we most definitely think Apple should make this feature a lot more accessible and obvious, one useful trick is to create your own custom lock screen wallpaper in an app like Photoshop, adding text that explains how to place emergency calls and access emergency medical information.
