Facility design helps ensure HHPA compliance

The regulations even affect the firms and individuals that design health care facilities, because the layout of a structure can affect privacy.

In a Sept. 16, 1999, Wall Street/ABC poll, 29 percent of all respondents indicated that one of the largest concerns for the upcoming century was privacy of information.

With the information highway, information is passed to and from people at a higher rate than it has been in the past, and there are more people getting access to this information than ever before – and they’re not necessarily the people who are intended to get this information.

Transmission of information

In 1996, Congress passed HIPAA and then gave itself a deadline of 1999 to pass comprehensive legislation regulating the privacy and security of information. If Congress did not meet this deadline, HIPAA authorized the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to take over the program.

Congress did not meet this deadline, so HHS proposed privacy regulations regarding secure treatment of electronic information. The idea was to set a secure standard for sharing information between health care providers. The HHS legislation went into effect April 14, 2003.

The new privacy regulations affect all health care providers, health plan administrators and health care clearinghouses. The regulations affect only transmitted information that could potentially identify an individual. The legislation also includes any paper documents that are being scanned and sets limits on how health care operators can use patients’ health care information. However, it does not restrict doctors, nurses and other providers from sharing information needed to treat patients.

It is very difficult to restrict information these days with all the different ways there are to obtain information. The enactment of this legislation is to protect all of us, but saying that and doing that or writing legislation to do that is very, very difficult. More than likely this piece of legislation will go through more changes and refinements in years to come as information access and health care changes.

Design options

From an architectural aspect, an architect can help design a space so that it helps ensure privacy when talking with patients about certain confidential issues. These days it is common to see “consulting rooms” in floor plans. These spaces are where discussions can take place in privacy with a patient.

Checkout areas where a follow-up appointment can be discussed should not be in the waiting room, where information that might be seen as private could be unknowingly shared with other parties in the waiting area.

Exam rooms can be designed with sound-deadening insulation in the interior walls, and the wall can extend up to the deck so that it is more difficult to hear casual conversation between the doctor and patient. Another way to take care of noise transference is “white noise,” such as Muzak, to mask sound within an exam room.

There are several ways that an architect can help a client meet some HIPAA regulations through facility design, as long as they are aware of the regulations and their intentions.

Stephanie D. Ireland is principal architect of Ireland and Associates in Springfield.