Alcohol and Other Drug abuse in adolescents and adults continues to be a major public health problem in the United States. Care in intervention programs aimed at high risk populations identified occurs after the maladaptive behavioral delinquency has occurred, and only then is an individual afforded the opportunity to join an intervention program. The focus of this paper is to illustrate and highlight the value of prevention programs which emphasize altering maladaptive behavior before the behavior becomes problematic. Emotional Intelligence is not only an indicator of alcohol and other drug abuse, but is linked to emotional competence, social and emotional learning, the development of healthy and life promoting behavior, and has been proven to reduce some of the risk factors associated with alcohol and other drug abuse in adolescents and adults. This paper seeks to recognize the significance of Emotional Intelligence as a desirable health promoting attribute and to establish the importance of its conceptual use in a prevention based model for reducing associated high risk behaviors.

Background: According to Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence accounts for up to eighty percent of unexplained successes in life and the remaining is mainly due to technical competence accounted by differences in the Intelligence Quotient.

Aim/Objective: This preliminary mini-review of the literature on Emotional Intelligence explores the application of Golemans’ definition of Emotional Intelligence’ multidimensional construct; self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill, to the healthcare environment to foster an enhanced Clinician-Patient Relationship.

Implications: As increasing minority demographics in the United States call for a high degree of cultural and emotional sensitivity in our clinician workforce, the development of Emotional Intelligence as a core competence and its inclusion in staff education and training seeks to provide clinicians with the requisite skills to address and deliver culturally appropriate health care services.

Conclusion: This paper concludes with a summary of the definitions for each dimension of Emotional Intelligence and corresponding applications to the Clinician-patient relationship.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the single largest cause of global morbidity and mortality and is the leading cause of death in the Indian subcontinent projected to contribute to deaths expected to double by 2015. The social and economic impact of these staggering projections highlight the need for a centralized effort to monitor and evaluate behavioral and physiological risk factors for CVD. Limited evidence on existing surveillance systems suggest that the key to an effective monitoring and evaluation (M and E) program for CVD surveillance in India relies upon the World Health Organization's STEP-wise model. Key recommendations for the Ministry of Health include the development of a national CVD surveillance program with expertise and a quality-improvement mechanism to receive continuous input from similar surveillance programs in likeminded countries. Structure of the surveillance system would include; (1) the development of process measures for CVD risk factor' based surveillance M and E systems for early detection of CVD at the local-level, (2) the development of trigger based data reporting responsibilities to State-based monitoring teams including incentives for accuracy in data reporting and the use of data-driven evidence to target risk specific intervention and prevention on Central Government monitoring teams with reporting feedback to the State and local-levels and (3) the creation of health policy to require the use of data to target risk specific prevention for intervention and developing local technical capacity. Such a system would provide significant cost and social benefits, presenting an evidence based data driven cost-effective business case for scale-up and potential use in areas comprising similar demographics. Future research should focus on the inclusion of a systematic critique of the reported data for the challenges to surveillance systems in India and the examination of the effect of an incentivized reporting system on the states. Further inquiry into the types of reporting and lessons from other countries' surveillance programs with alternative strategies to a national approach should address potential imitations at the ground or peripheral levels.

Safety-net settings across the country have grappled with providing adequate access to specialty care services. San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, serving as the city's primary safety-net hospital, has also had to struggle with the same issue. With Healthy San Francisco, the City and County of San Francisco's Universal Healthcare mandate, the increased demand for specialty care services has placed a further strain on the system. With the recent passage of California Proposition 1D, infrastructural funds are now set aside to assist in connecting major hospitals with primary care clinics in remote areas all over the state of California, using telemedicine. Based on a selected sample of key informant interviews with local staff physicians, this study provides further insight into the current process of e-referral which uses electronic communication for making referrals to specialty care. It also identifies key services for telemedicine in primary and specialty care settings within the San Francisco public health system. This study concludes with proposals for a framework that seek to increase collaboration between the referring primary care physician and specialist, to prioritize institution of these key services for telemedicine.

Recent empirical findings document the role of nonverbal communication in cross-cultural interactions. As ethnic minority health disparities in the United States continue to persist, physician competence in this area is important. We examine physicians' abilities to decode nonverbal emotions across cultures, our hypothesis being that there is a relationship between physicians' skill in this area and their patients' satisfaction and outcomes. First part tested Caucasian and South Asian physicians' cross-cultural emotional recognition ability. Physicians completed a fully balanced forced multiple-choice test of decoding accuracy judging emotions based on facial expressions and vocal tones. In the second part, patients reported on satisfaction and health outcomes with their physicians using a survey. Scores from the patient survey were correlated with scores from the physician decoding accuracy test. Physicians, regardless of their ethnicity, were more accurate at rating Caucasian faces and vocal tones. South Asian physicians were no better at decoding the facial expressions or vocal tones of South Asian patients, who were also less likely to be satisfied with the quality of care provided by their physicians and to adhere to their physicians' recommendations. Implications include the development of cultural sensitivity training programs in medical schools, continuing medical education and public health programs.