Acoustic comfort in closed rooms often means expectations of speech privacy

The design of privacy areas is very similar in offices, healthcare, and other building segments, but the focus is squarely on healthcare due to the HIPAA regulations involving personal medical information. Given the degree of enclosure provided by the walls, ceiling, doors, etc., common expectations by occupants of those closed spaces is for confidential speech privacy. So, how do we design and evaluate the speech privacy provided by medical offices, treatment rooms, conference rooms, etc. ASTM laboratory testing of components and systems including STC, CAC, and NRC are part of the answer. But the bottom line is in the field with actual performance testing of the systems as they are built and operated. Two questions to be answered are how do we make informed decisions about product and system choices, and how do we maximize speech privacy using those architectural choices.