Business Communication (MGMT1201): Negative Message Letter Assignment

This assignment presents a negative message letter written by a student, fulfilling the requirements of a Business Communication course (MGMT1201). The letter addresses a privacy breach at a diagnostic and treatment center, informing affected patients about the unauthorized access of their health records. The student demonstrates key principles of negative message delivery, including clarity, conciseness, and a focus on maintaining trust and respect. The letter apologizes for the incident, outlines the steps taken to address it, and assures patients of the organization's commitment to data privacy. References to academic sources support the strategies employed in the letter. The assignment successfully fulfills the objectives of the assignment brief by effectively communicating unfavorable news while maintaining a professional and empathetic tone.

Running head: NEGATIVE MESSAGE LETTER 1
Negative Message Letter to the affected patients notifying about breach of their health records

NEGATIVE MESSAGE LETTER 2
Business Letter
October 17, 2019
Re: Security of personal information
Richmond Road Diagnostic and Treatment Centre
1820 Richmond Road SW
Calgary, AB T2T 5C7
Phone: [phone]
Dear Member,
We are writing to inform you of recent incident that may impact the security of your personal
information. Even though we have ensured privacy of our patient records for all these years, we are
sharing this unfortunate incident of privacy breach to ensure that you are aware of it and take necessary
steps to protect your information.
We came to know that one of our staff members conducted this data breach from February to July of this
year and was engaged in unauthorized access of 178 patient health records. Our responsibility of auditing
the records on a monthly basis let us discover breach in the Clinical system. This person accessed your
records most likely as a part of his duties.
We deeply regret this incident and believe it to be unacceptable especially because we have extensively
worked for the past several years to value the privacy of our patients. We would like to assure that we
reported the incident to Alberta Health and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner and
terminated the person at fault.
As suggested by McMillan, et. al. (2018), maintaining safety and privacy of patient is of prime
importance. We assure that no information has been misused. We ensure information privacy by
enhancing staff training and implementing more stringent auditing tools and technique (Hattingh, et. al.,
2015). We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused and hope that Albertans maintain the same
trust from us.
Sincerely,
Name: ()
Medical Office Assistant
Richmond Road Diagnostic and Treatment Centre

NEGATIVE MESSAGE LETTER 3
References
Hattingh, H. L., Knox, K., Fejzic, J., McConnell, D., Fowler, J. L., Mey, A., ... & Wheeler, A. J. (2015).
Privacy and confidentiality: perspectives of mental health consumers and carers in pharmacy
settings. International Journal of Pharmacy Practice, 23(1), 52-60.
McMillan, B., Eastham, R., Brown, B., Fitton, R., & Dickinson, D. (2018). Primary Care Patient Records
in the United Kingdom: Past, Present, and Future Research Priorities. Journal of medical Internet
research, 20(12), e11293.