It was 2006 and my spouse and I were seated in the waiting room of my obstetrician's office. I was expecting our first baby and just there for a normal check-up. It was an early morning appointment, so there was only one other patient in the waiting room with us. I recall noticing her because she looked young and she wasn't noticeably pregnant (like patients who joined me in the waiting room usually were.) The assistant called her back by name just before they called me back.

As my spouse and I sat in the exam room and talked, we heard the midwife open the door to the exam room next door and greet the person who had been in the lobby with us. Then, we very clearly heard an exchange between them about how the patient had engaged in some unsafe practices and now was worried she had acquired an STD. My spouse and I looked at each other horrified that we had been privy to a discussion that was definitely none of our business. We also did not like the fact that, if we could hear them as clearly as if they were sitting in the room with us, then they obviously could hear us and our confidential conversations as well.

Before the midwife came into the room, I endeavored to find out the answer to why the sound was carrying so well between both rooms. I found out that the room had been retrofitted to fit the needs of this midwife's practice and that the wall between both rooms butted up against a window. There was about a half an inch of space between the window and the wall and that was the culprit of the sound leak.

Besides it being a glaring breach of HIPAA standards, this type of predicament could conceivably effect a doctor's relationship with and care that they give to a patient. If the person observes that what they tell their physician is not 100% confidential, they could be more nervous to give out information that could be pertinent to what care they should be receiving. The trust between a patient and a physician should be fostered and protected and this kind of disregard for the confidentiality of what is shared could be harmful to that.

An easy solution for the predicament would be to outfit the space with sound masking technology. With the addition of some barely noticeable background noise in each room, it would not have been nearly so easy to hear conversations in other rooms.

An easy solution for the problem of audible breaches of confidentiality would be to outfit the office with sound masking technology. With the addition of some subtle background or "white" noise in each room, it would not have been nearly so easy to hear discussions in other rooms.