Set Up Your Phone's Medical ID Before Surgery

Both apps let you fill in more than this, but for someone recovering from surgery, these are the fields worth actually completing:

• Current medications — especially blood thinners (e.g. warfarin, apixaban, rivaroxaban) and anything with a serious interaction risk. This is often the single most useful line for a paramedic.
• Allergies and reactions — medications, latex, contrast dye, anything relevant to emergency treatment.
• Medical conditions — diabetes, heart conditions, epilepsy, anything a treating clinician would want to know immediately.
• Implanted hardware — pacemaker, joint replacement, spinal fusion hardware, surgical mesh, stents. Some of these change what emergency imaging or procedures are safe to use.
• Blood type — if you know it. Leave it blank rather than guess.
• Emergency contact(s) — at least one person who can be reached quickly, with a relationship noted (spouse, adult child, carer).
• Surgeon or hospital contact — if your surgery was recent, add the ward or surgical team's number in the notes field if the app has one. It's not a standard field, but it's worth the extra line.

Uses the built-in Health app — no download needed.

• 1. Open the Health app and tap your profile picture (top right).
• 2. Tap Medical ID, then Edit (or Get Started if this is your first time).
• 3. Fill in conditions, allergies, medications, blood type, and emergency contacts.
• 4. Turn on Show When Locked so it's visible without a passcode, and Share During Emergency Call so it's shared automatically if you ever call emergency services.
• 5. Tap Done.

To check it worked: lock your phone, swipe to the passcode screen, tap Emergency (bottom left), then Medical ID. You should see everything you just entered, with no passcode required.

Uses the built-in Safety app on stock Android and Pixel phones (Android 12+). Samsung and other manufacturers may label this slightly differently — see the note below.

• 1. Open the Safety app (search for it if you can't find the icon) and sign in if prompted.
• 2. Tap Your info.
• 3. Under Medical information, add blood type, allergies, medications, and conditions.
• 4. Under Emergency contacts, add at least one contact.
• 5. Go to Emergency info access and turn on Show when locked.

Different phone, different menu name: on many Samsung phones, look under Settings → About phone → Emergency information instead. The feature exists on Android 12 and later regardless of brand — if you can't find "Safety," search your phone's Settings app for "emergency" or "medical."

A locked phone is normally a good thing. In an emergency, it becomes a wall between you and the people trying to help you — and it's the one piece of ID almost everyone is carrying. If you've just had surgery, you're often on new medications, possibly blood thinners, possibly with fresh hardware in your body, and you may not be in a state to explain any of that yourself. This is a small, one-off task that quietly covers you for exactly that situation, and for any other emergency down the track — it's not specific to surgery, it's just especially relevant right now.