The Emergency Medical Hologram project, headed by Lewis Zimmerman of Jupiter Station, was designed to be installed in the medical bays of any ship class devised going forward as of 2371, as holo-emitters and the necessary computer storage could be accounted for. The Odyssey was launched only a month ahead of this initiative becoming a fleetwide refit, though the project’s unique application had drawn interest from many shipboard officers in its nascent stages.

This was a boon to the lost Odyssey, as Lt. Annira’s interest in applied holography, and her similar side project, meant that project files on the prototype EMH program were in the ship’s database before they were cut off from the Starfleet libraries.

Downtime over Banea (and the desire to give the ship’s Klingon surgeon a break from humans needing headaches treated or cuts disinfected) prompted the the Captain to order the project a priority. Annira combined her holo-doc, the framework subroutines detailed in Zimmerman’s work, and a pair of holo-emitters that were originally used as signage on the Posel, and assembled a prototyped version of an EMH for use on the ship.

The crew has come to either appreciate or tolerate the EMH’s acerbic wit. In either case, they have come to appreciate it taking over for Plogh in most routine medical situations – a situation that the EMH itself does not particularly relish.