Speech privacy: The new 2010 architectural guidelines.

In January, speech privacy performance criteria were released in the 2010 Guidelines for the Design and Construction of Healthcare Facilities, which is accepted as code by ∼42 states and many federal, state, and municipal agencies. This is the first acceptance by regulatory authorities of speech privacy and will impact healthcare facilities across the United States. The criteria have also been adopted as the reference standard for two environmental quality credits in LEED HC and GGHCv2. In addition new 1.5 million dollar penalties took effect on Nov 30, 2009 for violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule, the first serious penalties since the law was written in 1995. The new speech privacy criteria simplify enforcement by accepting as “equivalent” all four of the established measurement systems (articulation index, privacy index and sound transmission index, and speech intelligibility index), thereby leaving regulators, courts, and professionals with a choice. The developers are working on the next edition (2014) when they hope to introduce the fifth and newest measurement system, S/N(A), which provides specific metrics for both “confidential” and “secure” privacy. Acoustical professionals will need to assist healthcare organizations, regulatory authorities, judges, lawyers, and consumer groups to understand the new criteria.