In this work, application of the electro-mechanical impedance (EMI) method in structural health monitoring as a damage detection technique has been investigated. A damage metric based on the real and imaginary parts of the impedance measures is introduced. Numerical and experimental tests are carried out to investigate the applicability of the method for various types of damage, such as debonding between the transducers and the plate, faulty sensors and impact damage in composite plates. The effect of several parameters, such as environmental effects, frequency sweep, severity of damage, location of damage, etc., on the damage metric has been reported.