Breach filing
ArchivedLittleton Regional Healthcare: 12,614 individuals, Feb 2024.
Littleton Regional Healthcare reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 28 February 2024. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in New Hampshire and lists 12,614 individuals affected, which makes it the 15th largest of the 38 New Hampshire filings on the register and the 314th largest of the 741 filings submitted nationally in 2024. Among the 8 New Hampshire filings made in 2024 it ranks 4th.
Individuals affected
12,614
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.02M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in NH
15th
of 38 New Hampshire filings
Rank in 2024
314th
of 741 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
- 12,614
- Breach submission date
- 28 February 2024
- Submission year
- 2024
- Type of breach
- Unauthorized Access/Disclosure
- Location of breached information
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- New Hampshire (NH)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in New Hampshire by size
- 15th of 38
- Rank in 2024 nationally
- 314th of 741
- New Hampshire median filing
- 5,205 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- NH-20240228-littleton-regional-healthcare
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in New Hampshire and in 2024
OCR classifies the incident as unauthorized access or disclosure, with the breached information held in email. Unauthorized Access/Disclosure is the type recorded on 6 of the 38 New Hampshire filings (16%) and on 15% of all filings submitted in 2024. Email appears on 21% of New Hampshire filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 32% of New Hampshire filings do involve one. At 12,614 individuals the breach is 2.4 times the New Hampshire median filing of 5,205 and 3.2 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.
New Hampshire's breach notification statute (N.H. Rev. Stat. 359-C:19 et seq.) requires notice to affected residents as quickly as possible. Its attorney general threshold: 1,000 or more residents (AG notified before individual notices). 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 12,614 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 $2.02M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $2.42M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Littleton Regional Healthcare. 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.
The covered entity (CE), Littleton Regional Healthcare, reported that it inadvertently mailed the protected health information (PHI) of 12,614 individuals to the wrong recipient. The PHI involved included names and dates of birth. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, and the media. In response to the breach, the CE implemented additional administrative and technical safeguards to better protect its PHI.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
12,614 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.02M
12,614 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$2.42M
12,614 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Littleton Regional Healthcare 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
New Hampshire statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
New Hampshire: N.H. Rev. Stat. 359-C:19 et seq.
- Notice to individuals
- As quickly as possible
- Attorney general threshold
- 1,000 or more residents (AG notified before individual notices) (Before individual notifications are sent)
- Private right of action
- No: Only the AG can enforce; individuals may pursue common-law remedies separately
- Penalty
- Unfair or deceptive act; injunctive relief, civil penalties, restitution, attorney fees
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
New Hampshire filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among New Hampshire filings in 2024, topped up from other years where 2024 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Access Sports Medicine & Orthopaedics | Healthcare Provider | 88,044 | 20 Jun 2024 | |||
| Lamont Hanley & Associates, Inc. | Business Associate | 22,216 | 22 Feb 2024 | |||
| Access Ambulatory Surgery Center, LLC | Healthcare Provider | 5,205 | 12 Sep 2024 | |||
| Catholic Medical Center | Healthcare Provider | 2,792 | 15 Apr 2024 |
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 1148.
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.