Emotionally Intelligent Healthcare    

Medical care means emotional as well as physical help, and every patient's experience of that care depends largely on the emotions she feels. This explains why both patient retention and malpractice suits correlate more strongly with the quality of the doctor-patient relationship than the objective care given. Yet emotional intelligence " being intelligent about handling emotions, both in oneself and in relationships " has been a missing ingredient in education for healthcare. Emotionally intelligent healthcare means upgrading the personal skills brought to bear in the health worker-patient relationship. Such skills among healthcare workers flourish most when leaders themselves are emotionally competent. There are both medical and business arguments for such care: it helps health workers operate at peak cognitive efficiency, and so make better decisions, and makes the human experience of care the kind patients appreciate.