Since 1971,
Lowell House Addiction Treatment and Recovery has provided the Lowell area of Massachusetts with exceptional addictions services and support. The private, non-profit organization offers programs that cover a wide range of residential and out-patient treatment and housing options.
The Lowell House physical space features several buildings, including residential facilities, sober homes, a Peer Recovery Support Center, and an Outpatient Clinic. The Outpatient Clinic contains rows of offices for private appointments, cubicles for the administrative and billing staff, and a front desk to greet community members. As an addiction treatment and recovery organization, the Lowell House falls under both HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulations, as well as 42 CFR Part 2, mandating the Confidentiality of Substance Abuse Disorder Patient Records. Therefore, speech privacy in this setting is paramount.
To combat the risk of information leakage, staff members initially placed floor speakers playing white noise and other ambient sounds in the hallway to mask the sensitive conversations happening in the offices and at the front desk. While the speech was protected, the environment became distracting for administrative employees, with multiple speakers emitting crickets and ocean sounds simultaneously.
Balazs Boldog, Speech Privacy Consultant at Yamaha UC, suggested the VSP-2 Speech Privacy System as a solution. Two VSP-2 control units and sixteen speakers in total were installed in the office hallways and near the front desk to replace the floor speakers. The black speakers blended perfectly with the black light bar, and the white speakers matched the white drop ceiling tiles in the private offices.
Immediately, the staff noticed a difference. The speech privacy sounds covered the sensitive conversation areas successfully, without creating annoying background noise. “It’s loud enough to do what it needs to do, but quiet enough to not be distracting,” said Matthew Brown, Chief Operating Officer at the Lowell House. “People in the office can’t hear conversations outside, and people in the cubicles can’t hear conversations in the private offices.”
The VSP-2’s unique info-masking technology provided enough sound masking to allow the removal of Lowell’s previous method, floor speakers. “The clashing sounds coming from different noise machines made it difficult for administrative staff to focus,” said Matthew. “The phoneme and environmental sounds from the VSP-2 are much less distracting.” Furthermore, removing the floor speakers kept clients from tripping over tangled wires and units.
Tuning the VSP-2 for the first time took little effort. The staff quickly found their preferred sound volume and speech privacy levels after installation, (overall volume to level five, the environment sound and speech masking sound at level four). The VSP-2 stays powered on each day without any need for adjustment.
Following the success of the VSP-2’s first units, the CEO is now considering installing additional VSP-2 Systems outside of the conference room, the back hallway, and the executive suite.
For more information on the VSP-2 Speech Privacy System, visit
https://uc.yamaha.com/products/speech-privacy/speech-privacy-system/.