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 husband and I sat in the exam room and talked, we heard the midwife open the door to the exam room right next to us and greet the woman who had been in the waiting room with us. Then, we very distinctly heard a conversation between them about how the patient had engaged in some unhealthy practices and now was worried she had become infected with an STI. My husband and I looked at each other horrified 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 distinctly as if they were sitting in the room next to us, then they obviously could hear us and our confidential discussions as well.

Before the doctor came into the room, I endeavored to find out the answer to why the noise was carrying so well between the two rooms. I discovered that the area had been retrofitted to fit the needs of this midwife's practice and that the wall between the two rooms butted up against a window. There was about a centimeter of space between the window and the wall and that was at the bottom of the noise leak.

Besides it being a definite breach of HIPAA standards, this type of predicament could potentially effect a physician's relationship with and care that they give to a patient. If the person discovers that what they tell their doctor is not necessarily confidential, they could be more reluctant to give out details that could be relative to what care they should be receiving. The trust between a client and a doctor should be fostered and safeguarded and this kind of disregard for the confidentiality of what is shared could be damaging to that.

An easy solution for the predicament would be to outfit the office 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 discussions in other rooms.

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