Quick answer: Include, per family member: medications, allergies, conditions, blood type and doctor contacts. Include, for the household: emergency contacts and insurance details. Keep it digital so it’s never out of date by the time you need it.
What to include for each family member
- Current medications with dose and frequency
- Allergies and reaction type
- Key conditions and blood type
- Primary doctor and any specialists, with contact details
- Recent relevant lab results or discharge summaries
Household-level information
- Emergency contacts, in priority order
- Insurance policy numbers and provider contacts
- Preferred hospital or urgent care, if you have one
A lighter version for the go-bag
A physical binder is heavy to grab in a genuine emergency evacuation. Keep a condensed one-page-per-person summary in your go-bag — medications, allergies, conditions, emergency contact — and rely on a phone-accessible full version for anything more detailed.
A binder that updates itself
A paper binder is accurate on the day you build it and drifts out of date from there. Keep the actual information in each family member’s MedKeep profile instead, update it as things change, and export a fresh PDF summary whenever you want a physical copy — for the go-bag, the fridge, or a binder that’s never more than a day out of date.
Frequently asked questions
What should be in a family emergency medical binder?
Per person: medications, allergies, conditions, blood type and doctor contacts. For the household: emergency contacts and insurance details, kept as current as possible.
How do I keep an emergency medical binder up to date?
Keep the source information in a digital record, like a MedKeep profile per family member, and export a fresh PDF whenever you need a physical copy — that way it’s never based on stale information.
What goes in a lighter go-bag version?
A condensed one-page summary per person — medications, allergies, conditions and an emergency contact — light enough to grab quickly, with the full detail available on your phone.
Try it with MedKeep — free
Your whole family's medications, vitals, visits and documents. Encrypted on your device, works offline.