Breach filing
ArchivedFairview Health Services: 14,623 individuals, Sep 2011.
Fairview Health Services reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 27 September 2011. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Minnesota and lists 14,623 individuals affected, which makes it the 49th largest of the 189 Minnesota filings on the register and the 31st largest of the 200 filings submitted nationally in 2011. Among the 4 Minnesota filings made in 2011 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
14,623
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.34M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in MN
49th
of 189 Minnesota filings
Rank in 2011
31st
of 200 filings nationally
Section F.1 / The filing
As posted by HHS OCR
Every value below is the portal's own field for this filing, plus its rank within the register.
- Covered entity type
- Healthcare Provider
- Individuals affected
- 14,623
- Breach submission date
- 27 September 2011
- Submission year
- 2011
- Type of breach
- Theft
- Location of breached information
- Laptop
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Minnesota (MN)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Minnesota by size
- 49th of 189
- Rank in 2011 nationally
- 31st of 200
- Minnesota median filing
- 3,159 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- MN-20110927-fairview-health-services
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Minnesota and in 2011
OCR classifies the incident as theft, with the breached information held in a laptop. Theft is the type recorded on 13 of the 189 Minnesota filings (7%) and on 62% of all filings submitted in 2011. Laptop appears on 7% of Minnesota filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 35% of Minnesota filings do involve one. At 14,623 individuals the breach is 4.6 times the Minnesota median filing of 3,159 and 3.7 times the national median of 4,000 across all 7,884 filings. It sits in the 10,000 to 99,999 band, which holds 1,938 filings.
As of 28 August 2026 the case is listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive. OCR's closing summary of the case is reproduced in full below.
Minnesota's breach notification statute (Minn. Stat. 325E.61) requires notice to affected residents in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: no general AG requirement (reporting agencies at 500+ residents within 48 hours). The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule ran alongside it: notice to affected individuals and to HHS without unreasonable delay and no later than 60 days after discovery, which is the clock that put this filing on the portal.
Multiplying 14,623 individuals by IBM's $160 customer-PII cost per record (Cost of a Data Breach 2025, the figure the site's calculator uses) gives a modelled $2.34M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $2.81M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Fairview Health Services. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 0.4 times the sector average.
Section F.3 / OCR closing summary
The portal's archived description, in full
Written by the Office for Civil Rights when the case was closed and reproduced verbatim from the HHS export.
An unencrypted laptop computer storing the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of approximately 14,623 individuals was stolen from the locked vehicle of a workforce member of Accretive Health, a business associate (BA) of the covered entity (CE), Fairview Health Services. The ePHI included individuals' names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers, financial information, and clinical information. The CE provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media. It also provided complimentary credit monitoring services to affected individuals. Following the breach, the CE investigated the root cause of the breach, developed a new policy which addresses the risks associated with sharing sensitive data with third parties, and obtained assurances from the BA that it would undertake appropriate corrective actions. OCR obtained a copy of the BA agreement between the CE and the BA at the time of the breach. OCR also obtained evidence and assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions listed.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
14,623 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.34M
14,623 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$2.81M
14,623 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Fairview Health Services to HHS, multiplied by IBM's customer-PII cost per record (Cost of a Data Breach 2025 Figure 6 and the 2026 edition). No cost has been disclosed by the entity for this filing; the figure is a planning estimate, not a fact about the breach. IBM's per-record figures come from mid-volume breaches and IBM cautions against applying them to breaches involving millions of records; the site's per-record page explains where the multiplication holds and where it breaks down.
Context: IBM's average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M in the 2026 report ($7.42M in 2025); the global average across all sectors was $4.44M in 2025.
Cost per record: method and limits / Healthcare breach cost, IBM 2026
Section F.6 / Notification clock
Minnesota statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Minnesota: Minn. Stat. 325E.61
- Notice to individuals
- In the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- No general AG requirement (reporting agencies at 500+ residents within 48 hours)
- Private right of action
- No: Only the Minnesota Attorney General may enforce
- Penalty
- Up to $25,000 per violation; contractual waivers of notification are void
The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule runs alongside the state statute: notice to affected individuals and to HHS without unreasonable delay and no later than 60 days after discovery.
Section F.7 / Peer filings
Minnesota filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Minnesota filings in 2011, topped up from other years where 2011 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Family Service Rochester | Healthcare Provider | 17,037 | 17 Feb 2017 | |||
| UnitedHealth Group health plan single affiliated covered entity | Health Plan | 16,291 | 4 Jun 2010 | |||
| Nemadji Research Corporation d/b/a California Reimbursement Enterprises | Business Associate | 14,591 | 8 Jul 2019 | |||
| North Memorial Health Care | Healthcare Provider | 9,497 | 27 Sep 2011 | |||
| InStep Foot Clinic, P.A. | Healthcare Provider | 2,600 | 11 Oct 2011 |
Index / Companion schedules
13 HHS breach register
→Hub: every filing, by state, year and entity.
04 Biggest breaches
→Mega-breaches with primary-source cost figures.
Industry / Healthcare
→IBM 2026: $6.64M average, 13 years at #1.
Regulation / HIPAA penalties
→OCR enforcement tiers and the 60-day rule.
11 50-state laws
→Deadline, AG threshold and penalties per state.
Cost / Per record
→Where the per-record model is reliable.
Provenance
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, Breach Portal (breaches affecting 500 or more individuals), retrieved 2026-08-28. Public domain. Individuals affected and dates as reported by the covered entity.
Portal: ocrportal.hhs.gov breach report. Statutory basis: HITECH Act section 13402(e)(4): the Secretary must post a list of breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals. Breaches affecting fewer than 500 individuals are reported to OCR annually and are not posted, so they are not on this register. Status wording follows the portal's two tabs ("Cases Currently Under Investigation" and "Archive") as of 28 August 2026; a filing moves to the archive when OCR closes the case. Modelled costs on this site are a method applied to the reported count, using IBM Cost of a Data Breach per-record figures, and are never a cost disclosed by the entity. This row: hhs-breach-archive__2026-08-28.csv, export row 6816.
Corrections: if you represent a listed entity and the portal row has been amended, email [email protected] with the portal entry and we will re-pull the export.