[voicedYoda]

One of the interesting rules of HIPAA is that if it starts analog, it doesn't have to conform to encryption technologies, i.e. phone calls and fax machines don't require the complexities a digital system, like an electronic medical record, require.

When HIPAA was created, a large impetus was getting large health systems onto electronic records. Portability and accountability reigned high. And there's a lot of information and misinformation about this.

Attorney general letters help clarify a lot of it.

But sharing a hospital room doesn't violate anything related to HIPAA because that isn't what the law protects.