EMDI Overview

Electronic Medical Documentation Interoperability (EMDI) Program

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Electronic Medical Documentation Interoperability (EMDI) Initiative supports the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) standards and interoperability Initiatives. The EMDI Initiative facilitates and expands the secure electronic exchange of health information among organizations in accordance with nationally recognized standards.

The overall EMDI Initiative aims to:

1. Reduce administrative burden for providers
2. Increase interoperability among systems and organizations across the public and private sectors
3. Improve provider-to-provider communication

The EMDI stakeholders include hospitals, physicians, DMEPOS suppliers, home health agencies, health information handlers, health information service providers, health information exchanges, document transfer vendors, interface vendors, electronic health record vendors, electronic medical record vendors, home health agencies, laboratories, and other healthcare organizations.

CMS developed the EMDI Initiative to:

• Identify standards and create implementation guides containing the content specifications and transport specifications needed to implement EMDI pilots within the Medicare Fee-For-Service program.
• Establish pilot programs with providers to demonstrate secure exchange of health information.
• Provide a collaborative environment of open support for organizations to voluntarily participate in pilots and adopt various data standards for interoperable documentation, review, and exchange.
• Facilitate the expansion of a secure transport system for interoperable electronic medical documentation and to help overcome barriers faced by organizations when implementing the pilot.
• Support adoption of real-world use cases to advance secure and standardized electronic data exchange for medical documentation requests and responses (e.g., Durable Medical Equipment and Home Health orders, Digital and Electronic signatures).

EMDI Resources and Pilots

Join the EMDI Initiative.

For more information, visit the EMDI Collaboration Website.

While the EMDI Initiative is for provider-to-provider communication, the CMS Electronic Submission of Medical Documentation (esMD) system was designed for provider-to-payer communication.

For more information about general CMS eHealth programs, visit the CMS eHealth Website.

Disclaimer: The EMDI Initiative, associated documentation, and pilots are for the purposes of evaluating the performance of CMS policies that involve interoperability and the collection of data/information only, and do not involve any rule making, changing of current CMS policy, or the creation of new requirements for Medicare beneficiaries or providers.