Thats exactly right, too much stuff going on. And what we really need is info on medical history, medications, allergies. It not like we can call someone who is obviously important to you and get that info, without explaining why we are calling. Now we have someone consoling an extremely upset spouse in another state, country, ect...Then their are privacy issues...
Your best bet is your wallet. Actually probrably the bracelet if it can hold that info, but it looks like it only holds phone numbers. Cops are notorious for going through wallets on scene too and might find it. Put that info I listed in there for us and have the contact info on there for the hospital to use.
EDIT:I just went to Road ID website and "built" one to see what you can get on them. You can get quite a bit of info on there. If you dont have a lot of allergies, med hist, and/or meds it might work well. You get an extra line on the dog tag over the bracelet or ankle. They also include some common medical abbreviations to help you get more info on.
I think I might go ahead and get it for running, ect. We have left some John Doe's at the hospital before. Wonder how long it takes to find some peoples families?

How universal is the concept of ICE? Is it something that would be recognized in Europe, for example?

Yeah, I've seen the ICE threads going around here in Europe as well.

One thing to note though: on most Nokia handsets you can't have two contacts with the same phone number. Or you can, but then the phone won't be able to show you a name when you get a call from that number. For example, if you have entries called 'Wife' and 'ICE' with the same number and your wife calls you up, the phone won't know which name to show. So it shows neither and shows the phone number instead.

On my old LG phone, I was able to get around that by entering the ICE number with a "1-" prefix:
1-555-555-5555 "ICE Wife"
555-555-5555 "Wife"

ICE was actually started in Eurpoe.

Somebody who was a paramedic for 13 years subbmitted a concept to Vodaphone as a concept for their annual live saver awards. In his application he said that 75% of the people they come across do not have any contact information on them for emergencies, and even if they have a phone with mum as an entry, they do not know if the person wants mum to be called.

How he came about the idea
http://www.ice4safety.com/sitebuilde...nthemaking.pdf

It's a tool, I don't believe anybody has ever said it's the only tool. There are also many other tools that serve to convey the information should it be needed (probably more frequently by the hospital then by the people at the scene), but my thought is should I ever need somebody to find my emergency contact information, it's not going to hurt me to have it in my wallet and on the phone and where ever else it is located. I don't know where they will look first, I don't know if my wallet or phone will still be with me, so it's not a huge deal to have it in more then one place.

Some of the phone companies has totally embraced it, on mine for example the ICE entry is the first entry in the phone book so there's no scrolling to find it.