Part I. Communication in Health Care, and its Role in Quality and Safety: 1. Introduction: communicating for quality and safety Rick Iedema, Donella Piper and Marie Manidis; 2. A brief history of communication in healthcare Rick Iedema, Donella Piper and Marie Manidis; Part II. Communicating Quality and Safety across Service and Clinical Domains: 3. Communicating with the patient in primary care settings Jill Thistlethwaite and George Ridgway; 4. Communicating across rural and metropolitan health care settings Donella Piper, Vicki Parker and Jane Gray; 5. Communicating in emergency care Marie Manidis; 6. Communicating in intensive care K. J. Farley, Gerard J. Fennessy and Daryl Jones; 7. Communicating about end-of-life care Aileen Collier; 8. Communicating in surgery Elizabeth Manias; 9. Communicating with people with cognitive impairment Sam Davis and Aileen Collier; 10. Therapeutic communication with people experiencing mental illness Jennifer Plumb; 11. Communicating in partnership with service users: what can we learn from child and family health? Nick Hopwood; Part III. General Health Communication Strategies: 12. Improving care by listening: care communication and shared decision-making Natalya Godbold and Kirsten McCaffery; 13. Intra- and interprofessional communication Jill Thistlethwaite, Marie Manidis and Cindy Gallois; 14. Communicating care: informed consent Katherine Carroll and Rick Iedema; 15. Communicating bad news: bad news for the patient Jill Thistlethwaite; 16. Communicating in an e-health environment Vicki Parker, Douglas Bellamy and Deidre Besuijen; 17. Communicating for quality and safety in Aboriginal healthcare George Hayden and Caris Jalla; 18. Communicating with culturally and linguistically diverse patients in cancer care Phyllis Butow; 19. Communicating empathy in the face of pain and suffering Catherine O'Grady and Aileen Collier; 20. Taking the heat in critical situations: being aware, assertive and heard Benn Lancman and Christine Jorm; Part IV. Regulation and Law: 21. Communicating about how the safety and quality of care are regulated Donella Piper, Luke Slawomirski and Rick Iedema; 22. Communicating bad news: when care goes wrong Rick Iedema, Kate Bower and Donella Piper; 23. The role of the law in communicating patient safety Donella Piper, Tina Cockburn, Bill Madden, Prue Vines, Janine McIlwraith and Ngaire Watson.