Updated 9/28/2021
What if I told you that you could put an ICE Contact on your iPhone with everything it needs to have in it to save your life, in minutes?
Would you grab your phone and go for it? Of course you would!
Here’s how to do it!
iPhones are always getting better and Apple’s newest effort at keeping customers safe — Medical ID — is amazing. But as much as we LOVE it, there are two reasons you still need to make a regular ICE Contact.
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You can put an unlimited amount of vital information into a regular contact.
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Hospitals are used to looking for ICE Contacts rather than Medical ID and if you don’t have a regular one, they might miss it.
And with the way the world has been the last few years — from hurricanes to wildfires, tornadoes and oh yeah, COVID — having an ICE contact is the perfect way to keep your family safe and connected no matter WHAT is happening around you.
Here’s what you’ll need:
All of the contact info for your two (or more) emergency contacts.
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A list of your allergies.
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A list of your medical conditions/recent surgeries
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The contact information for your main physician(s)
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Any other information you would like an ER to know about you.
Grab your phone and let’s get started!
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Put the word ICE, all capitals, in the First Name field. Don’t type anything else in this field!
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Put your ICE Contact’s full name and relationship to you in the Company field, ie John Smith – Husband.
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Type in every phone number you have for your contact.
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Type in all of your contact’s email addresses — again, every last one.
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Type in all of your contact’s social media handles/user names. You never know what will be up and running in an emergency. Many people have reached loved ones on Facebook and Twitter, when cell phone and landline service was down.
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All of your own allergies, medications and medical history go in the notes section. Even better capitalize the words ALLERGIES, MEDICATIONS etc to ensure that they’re seen.
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Add your physician’s names and phone numbers in the notes section and if you like, a link to your own Medical History Form. If you don’t have one, you can borrow one of ours.
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Is your contact in different locations on different days? Add that in the notes section as well.
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And finally, never put your social security number or insurance member number into your ICE Contact. You can add the name of your insurance company and customer service number, but the actual numbers can wait until later.
And now, let’s make your ICE info even easier to find, by setting up your iPhone’s Medical ID.
Don’t forget that you can fill in your ICE Contact on your Mac or iPad. Not only is it easier to type on a larger screen, but once you save it to your contacts, it will sync with iCloud and appear right on your phone.
What Is Medical ID?
Medical ID, a part of the Apple Health App, not only gives you a place to put your emergency medical information, but it puts a link to that information right on the front of your phone, where it can be viewed by a hospital even if your phone is password locked.
You’ll find it on most iPhones (iPhone 6 and up) using iOS 8 and higher. If your phone is older and doesn’t have Medical ID, you can just leave your ICE Contact the way it is.
On your home screen click on the Health App – it’s the one with the heart on it. This will take you to the Dashboard page of the Health App. On the bottom right of the screen, you’ll see the Medical ID icon. Click on it.
On the Medical ID screen, click on the red link that says Create Medical ID.
The most important part of the Medical ID screen is at the top. It’s the On/Off Switch that shows a link to your emergency information on the home screen of your phone even when it’s password-locked.
Before you do anything else, switch this to the ON position. It will turn green like the graphic below.
By the way, none of the information in your Medical ID is shared with any of the other apps on your phone.
Enter All Of Your Information
Put all the information you possibly can into your Medical ID.
As you can see it already has fields for your birth date, medical conditions, allergies, current medications and other information. There are two sections that you need to pay special attention to – Medical Notes and Add Emergency Contact.
After you finish filling in the regular fields, use the Notes Section to list anything that didn’t fit into them, like the names and phone numbers of your physicians and healthcare providers and contact information for your Insurance Company. Again, don’t add any sensitive personal information like a social security number, insurance member ID number or financial information.
You can also place a link to your Medical History Form in the Notes Section to give emergency personnel to quick access to your medical history until your emergency contact arrives at the hospital.
Add Your Emergency Contact
When you click on Medical ID’s Add Emergency Contact button, it will show you a list of your contacts, so you can choose the people you’d like to add to your Medical ID. That’s why we had you set up your ICE Contacts first.
Go ahead and click on the button and choose your first ICE Contact.
If you have additional ICE Contacts (a smart idea, in case your first contact is unreachable), then click on the Add Emergency Contact field again to add as many additional people as you would like.
Want to save time turning your husband or wife’s contact into an ICE Contact? Simple! Just tap & hold the contact you want to use, choose share and email it to yourself. Then open it in your email, make the changes from above to turn it into an ICE Contact and save it to your contacts as ICE.
That’s all there is to it!
While you’re here, be sure to check out our other posts like How To Put An ICE Contact On Your Samsung Galaxy, Android or Window’s Phone (you’ll find the links below), to learn EVERYTHING you need to know about ICEing nearly any type of phone.
And don’t forget to put ICE Contacts on your spouse’s and kid’s phones, iPods and other devices too, along with each other’s contact information, so you can all get in touch with each other quickly in an emergency.
And when your phone is ready to keep you safe, remember to keep it safe with a sturdy (and beautiful!) new case like this one, or this one.
Having an ICE contact and Medical ID is an awesome way keep your family safe and connected no matter WHAT is happening around you.
High Tech Toys
Here are the coolest ways we can find to keep everyone you love safe and connected. Smart phones, smart watches, smart flash drives that beam data where you need it and a car accessory that diagnoses your engine on the go. You’re welcome.
The COVID pandemic has created a new list of toys that people can’t do without — including some very cool high-tech solutions to unexpected challenges. Like staying healthy and working from home! Here are some of our favorites.
As amazing as this ICE Contact is, we have high-powered, fully loaded versions in our book “The ICE My Phone Kit” along with step by step directions for ICEing iPhones, Galaxies, regular androids and even phones that are, shall we say, not all that smart.
Have Fun Getting Your Stuff Together!
The ICE My Phone Kit
Did you know your smartphone can save your life? It can also save your spouse’s life, your kid’s lives and the lives of everyone you love! The secret is letting your phone do the talking for you in an emergency. How? With ICE, your in case of emergency contact. In “The ICE My Phone Kit” you’ll find step by step directions for ICEing, iPhones, Galaxies, regular Androids, Windows and even flip phones. Paperback Or Instant Download
At Your Fingertips | Make Your Smartphone Even Smarter
What if I told you, there was something you have with you right now, that can give you the support, information & ability you need to keep everyone and everything you love safe and sound, PLUS the power to gather your family in seconds no matter where they are. What is it? It’s your smartphone! At Your Fingertips is an easy to read, easy to use guide that turns your smartphone into your very own life preserver. Paperback Or Instant Download
How To Set Up Your ICE Contacts
Keep The People You Love Safe
As Amazon Associates we earn commissions from qualifying purchases made from product links.
Get Your Stuff Together 
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Hey, thank you for sharing this information. I used this method to enter my emergency contacts. One important thing, if I entered my contacts with “ICE,” Siri would fail to recognize these contacts and would attempt to contact someone else. If entered the information “Ice” Siri would correctly retrieve the info.
Andi, thanks so much! That’s a huge help and a very important point. I wonder if that’s true for every model of iPhone… Readers if you can help us out with this, please try it on your own iPhone and let us know if Siri recognizes your ICE contact when it’s typed all in caps “ICE” or if it needs to be Ice on your particular phone. By the way, we’re sending something special your way for this life saving comment 🙂
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Doesn’t work when phone is password locked. Best not to waste people’s time with this. The Health app is a better choice and it shows when locked on the emergency screen as long as you have set it up.
Hi Anon,
Thanks for visiting and for the comment. Did you know that there’s a great way to set up an ICE Contact on your iPhone even if you password protect it? We wrote a post on it that you can find at this link: http://wp.me/pRz6k-lI You’re right — the Medical ID and Health App are great on the newer iPhones but many people still have the old version, or don’t password protect their phones. You can find our post on the best way to set up your Health App/Medical ID here on our blog: http://wp.me/pRz6k-lW Have a spectacular day!
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Just sign up to download our ICE My Phone Kit – the link is on the right side of the page – and we’ll put you on the email list.
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Thanks SO much for vising our blog. Hope you enjoyed it.
I don’t know a lot about making WordPress Blogs mobile friendly, but I do know the last theme we had on our blog looked bad on mobile. We switched over to Adelle, the current theme and now everything looks great. We didn’t switch it for that reason, but it was a nice bonus and I have noticed that no matter what mobile device I use, iPhone, iPad or Android, it looks wonderful. So you might want to try a few different themes and see what they look like on your iPhone4.
Hope that helps and have a great weekend! Laura
The problem with ICE contact is recents. I use recents to redial people the most since everyone I call is right there. But instead of the contact showing your wife, it shows ICE. It’s annoying.
Hi Bob, I completely agree, it is annoying. I had the same problem myself, but there’s a quick fix. All you need to do is to create one contact just for your wife and another one that’s just an ICE Contact. They really should have different information in them anyway.
The contact that’s just your wife’s info so you can call her, can have notes you need just for her – like reminders, her birthday, a standing date night — things that don’t belong in an ICE Contact.
But the ICE Contact needs to have the name ICE, your wife’s name and relationship to you, all of her phone numbers and social media handles along with YOUR medical information, like your allergies, past illnesses and any prescriptions you regularly take in the Notes section.
Then put your wife’s photo in her contact and one of our ICE Contact Graphics in the ICE Contact and no one will ever get them mixed up. And that way, the next time you redial your wife, you’ll see her name and her lovely photo.
Hope that helps! Laura
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I have an ICE set up on my iPhone4s… It’s easy and accessible when my phone is passcode locked. Here’s how to do it…
1. Go into contacts and create a new contact, FIRST Name must only be ICE
2. DO NOT ENTER Surname field or the iPhone will automatically put it alphabetical order to that and not I for ICE
3. Put the name and relationship of contact into the COMPANY FIELD
e.g. “Jon Doe (Partner)” By putting this in the Company Field it eliminates the alphabetical order problem of surnames and keeps ICE in the I etc and stands it alone from all other contacts
4. Enter all and as much contact information that you can (remember you may be unconscious at the time someone needs this information)
5. To access this information even when the iPhone is passcode locked, press and hold down the main key to access Siri, ask Siri ‘Contacts ICE’ Siri will then display all the information you have saved…
6. Remember this technique on an iPhone 4s as you may now access someone elses ICE if they are in your need…
Hope this helps…
That’s wonderful Jon! Thanks so much for the tip!
If you have a password on your iPhone how can you set it up so emergency personnel can see your ICE contacts?
That’s such a great question. I don’t know, but I have a friend who works at Apple, so let me ask her and I’ll get back to you.
Hi, I’ve got an answer for you. If you have a password on your iPhone, emergency personnel CANNOT get your ICE information off of it. Fire/Rescue personnel evidently will not even try to break the password if they encounter this, but hospital personnel and police may, if they cannot find the next of kin of an unconscious patient. Basically though if you normally password protect your smartphone, you should also carry an emergency wallet card with the same information, to make it easier for emergency personnel to spot, and use. We have emergency wallet cards in our Ready In 10 downloadable Get Ready Kit that comes with book. It’s available on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145158699X?ie=UTF8&tag=circlemall-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=145158699X
That was a great question — we learned something too! Thanks!
Who will be the first Google, Apple, Microsoft? I wonder who will be next? Thank Ator, very instructive.
You never know. Want to work on a version of it for the UK? 🙂
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Thanks Yudi. I really appreciate that!
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