by Kevin Caron
Efforts to prevent unauthorized access to information usually focus on securing documents and electronic data. However, protecting the privacy of speech is also critical in healthcare settings.
Patients know that if they can overhear conversations, others can hear them as well, making them uncomfortable. Patients also have a right to auditory privacy, which is officially recognized by federal regulations. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires that healthcare entities take “reasonable safeguards” to protect a person’s Protected Health Information (PHI) from being
verbally transmitted to unintended parties.
However, healthcare facilities pose several challenges to achieving this goal. For example, the areas used to share medical and financial information — in person and over the phone — are often located within earshot of patient waiting areas. These spaces are typically open, with clean lines of sight to the reception desk, allowing sounds to travel unobstructed over a distance.
Sensitive conversations also occur in exam/consultation rooms. Though many believe they can achieve speech privacy simply by building adequate walls, much like water, sound travels via any available path, including ductwork, faulty door seals, back-to-back outlets, and even the smallest of gaps above the ceiling. Speech passes through these cracks in the armor into other rooms and corridors. If the background sound level in the adjacent areas is lower than the voice
level penetrating the walls, patients can overhear others’ consultations.
Therefore, though increasing the facility’s background sound level might seem to contradict the goal of achieving effective acoustics, it is a necessary step — one accomplished by installing a sound masking system. This technology uses loudspeakers located above the ceiling to distribute a sound that is often compared to softly blowing air, but engineered to provide a spectrum that improves acoustics. Any noises below this new level are covered up, while the disruptive impact of those above it is lessened. Similarly, conversations are either entirely masked or their intelligibility is reduced, improving privacy and providing a better overall patient experience.
Sound masking is easy to retrofit, but if included from the outset, one can more accurately specify the elements used to block and absorb noise, allowing the design to be delivered in a more cost-effective manner and with greater assurance of achieving the intended results.
Thundermist Health Center
Thundermist greatly values their patients’ privacy and comfort. With these goals in mind, the organization contracted Archoustics Northeast to provide sound masking throughout their Wakefield, R.I. health center — a 20,000sf facility that opened in 2015, which not only serves medical and dental patients, but also offers Thundermist’s walk-in medical service (QuickCare), a special supplemental nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC),
behavioral health counseling, pharmacy assistance, social services, and more.
Archoustics Northeast installed the LogiSon Acoustic Network, the sound masking, paging, and music technology for which they are the exclusive distributor in New England. They also tuned the system using TARGET, a proprietary application that ensures the sound reliably meets the desired masking spectrum and, therefore, provides consistently effective and comfortable coverage throughout all treated areas.
Andrew Tomkiewicz, Thundermist’s director of information technology, is pleased with the results, stating that “By implementing the LogiSon system, we have noticeably improved speech privacy around our checkin/checkout area, as well as throughout the exam rooms and offices. The addition of background music in the corridors and common spaces is also a plus, and is easy to set up and control.”
Thundermist is now working with Archoustics Northeast to install the LogiSon Acoustic Network in its Woonsocket location, which is undergoing complete renovation and expansion.
Kevin Caron is a regional account manager with Archoustics Northeast, distributor of the LogiSon Acoustic Network.