Creating Privacy in Office Spaces with Sound Masking

Privacy has been a chief concern in healthcare for a long time, with people thinking most often of HIPAA regulations, document storage and the exchange of patient information. Conversations in healthcare offices (and other corporate offices) contain sensitive information, too, and deserve privacy as well. How can you achieve that with rooms next to one another, cubicles situated closely together and offices designed with little space between people? The answer is office sound masking. 

Speech Privacy

Whether you need cubicle sound masking or healthcare office sound masking, the goal is the same: to ensure that only the people involved in a given conversation are the ones to hear it. This is exactly what sound masking for office spaces was designed for; to reduce the clarity of speech by introducing ambient noise into the mix. 

When white noise enters the area, a patient in one room won’t be able to make out the exact words the doctor in the next room is saying to another patient. The same is true for cubicles. If one employee is trying to finish a project on a tight deadline, they may get distracted when three of their coworkers start chatting one cubicle away. Office sound masking reduces that individual’s ability to make out what their coworkers are saying, and their voices – although still present – essentially fade to the back of that person’s consciousness. 

An added upside? Better productivity for all. If you can’t hear what your neighbors are saying, you’re far less likely to become distracted by it. Any office would benefit from that. 

Sound Masking Options

There are plenty of sound masking systems available to fit your budget, office configuration and speech privacy needs. There are also certain “smart” sound masking systems that automatically adjust their output based on the volume in your office. This type of technology uses sensors and algorithms to detect how full your space is and then scale its sound masking up or down to maintain optimal levels of ambient noise.