Emergency Medical and Contact Information on SmartPhones

Emergency Medical and Contact Information on SmartPhones
By: Donald Moore, October 2018

If you are deaf/hard of hearing, you may want to consider adding comments within your smartphone emergency info that are you are deaf and require the use of a sign language interpreter.  This information can be crucial for first responders in knowing your medical and communication needs.

There is no right or wrong way to enter this information.  As long as some medical and emergency information is available to first responders it can make a difference for them to know how to respond and assist you.

The following steps and screenshots are for an iPhone (iOS version 11 or higher). Consider setting up for your Android and other smartphone models  as needed.

Go to Settings 

Scroll down to “Emergency SOS” option

In “Emergency SOS” view – scroll down to
“Edit Emergency Contacts in Health”

Select “Edit” in upper right corner and enter your information as desired.

Include the note(s) as needed within the “Medical Notes” field then click “Done” at right top corner to save entries. Be sure to include any medical allergies if any.

(Example entries shown)

Note: You can include more than one Emergency contact, but they must already be within your Contacts so the fields can be auto-filled in. It can also be a good idea to specify your relationship with the emergency contact(s) you select.

** This is for demonstration purposes only and you can decide if and how to utilize this feature on your Smartphone.

For ASL the version on YouTube
(Video is captioned – be sure to enable YouTube captions on your device).

Rosemary Edwards is the IAD Emergency Alerts and Accessibility Chairperson. She may be contacted at: redwards@iadeaf.org
Donald Moore can be reached at dmoore@iadeaf.org for any question or comments.

For Android smartphone owners refer to the following web page for info/screen shots: