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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 husband and I sat in the exam room and conversed, we heard the OB/GYN open the door to the exam room right next to us and greet the girl who had been in the lobby with us. Then, we very plainly heard a conversation between them about how the girl had engaged in some hazardous practices and now was worried she had become infected with an STD. My husband and I looked at each other flabbergasted that we had been privy to information that was surely none of our business. We also did not like the fact that, if we could overhear them as plainly as if they were sitting in the room next to us, then they obviously could hear us and our confidential conversations as well.

Before the doctor came into the room, I endeavored to find out the reason the noise was carrying so well between the two rooms. I noticed that the room had been retrofitted to fit the needs of this medical practice and that the wall between the two 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 noise leak.

Besides it being an obvious breach of HIPAA laws, this type of problem could potentially effect a doctor's relationship with and care that they give to a client. If the patient observes that what they tell their physician is not necessarily confidential, they could be more nervous to give out specifics that could be relative to what care they should be receiving. The trust between a client and a physician should be fostered and protected and this kind of disregard for the confidentiality of what is shared could be damaging to that.

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