Four years ago my husband and I were waiting in the lobby of my doctor's office. Pregnant with our first child, we were there for a prenatal exam. It was one of the first appointments of the day, so there was only one other woman in the waiting room with us. Not only did she stick out because she was the only other person in there, but because she looked very young and did not look as if she was pregnant. She was summoned back to the exam room right before they called me back.

As my spouse 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 person 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 unhealthy practices and now was worried she had become infected with an STD. My spouse and I looked at each other flabbergasted 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 plainly as if they were seated in the room next to us, then they obviously could hear us and our confidential exchanges as well.

Before the obstetrician came into the room, I attempted to find out why the noise was carrying so well between the two rooms. I found out that the room had been retrofitted to fit the needs of this obstetrician's practice and that the wall between the two rooms came right up next to a window. There was about a centimeter of space between the window and the wall and that was the culprit of the sound leak.

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

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