Breach filing
ArchivedBlackstone Valley Community Health Care: 34,518 individuals, Apr 2024.
Blackstone Valley Community Health Care reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 22 April 2024. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Rhode Island and lists 34,518 individuals affected, which makes it the 4th largest of the 41 Rhode Island filings on the register and the 220th largest of the 741 filings submitted nationally in 2024. Among the 5 Rhode Island filings made in 2024 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
34,518
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$5.52M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in RI
4th
of 41 Rhode Island filings
Rank in 2024
220th
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
- 34,518
- Breach submission date
- 22 April 2024
- Submission year
- 2024
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Network Server
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Rhode Island (RI)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Rhode Island by size
- 4th of 41
- Rank in 2024 nationally
- 220th of 741
- Rhode Island median filing
- 4,000 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- RI-20240422-blackstone-valley-community-health-care
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Rhode Island and in 2024
OCR classifies the incident as a hacking or IT incident, with the breached information held in a network server. Hacking/IT Incident is the type recorded on 16 of the 41 Rhode Island filings (39%) and on 83% of all filings submitted in 2024. Network Server appears on 41% of Rhode Island filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 17% of Rhode Island filings do involve one. At 34,518 individuals the breach is 8.6 times the Rhode Island median filing of 4,000 and 8.6 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.
Rhode Island's breach notification statute (R.I. Gen. Laws Ch. 11-49.3) requires notice to affected residents within 45 calendar days after confirmation of the breach (30 days for government agencies). Its attorney general threshold: 500 or more Rhode Island residents. 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 34,518 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 $5.52M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $6.63M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Blackstone Valley Community Health Care. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 1.0 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), Blackstone Valley Community Health Care, reported that it was the victim of a ransomware attack affecting the protected health information (PHI) of 34,518 individuals. The PHI involved included names, social security and drivers' license numbers, address, dates of birth, and treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, and the media. Following the incident, the CE provided free credit monitoring and implemented additional administrative, technical, security, and physical safeguards.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
34,518 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$5.52M
34,518 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$6.63M
34,518 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Blackstone Valley Community Health Care 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
Rhode Island statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Rhode Island: R.I. Gen. Laws Ch. 11-49.3
Identity Theft Protection Act of 2015
- Notice to individuals
- Within 45 calendar days after confirmation of the breach (30 days for government agencies)
- Attorney general threshold
- 500 or more Rhode Island residents (Simultaneously with individual notice)
- Private right of action
- No: No direct individual lawsuits; AG holds exclusive enforcement authority
- Penalty
- Up to $100 per record (reckless) or $200 per record (knowing and willful), no aggregate cap
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
Rhode Island filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Rhode Island 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brightstar Global Solutions CorporationOpen | Health Plan | 103,879 | 3 Oct 2025 | |||
| Wood River Health | Healthcare Provider | 54,926 | 28 Jul 2025 | |||
| Internal Medicine Associates, LLC d/b/a Gastrointestinal Medicine Associates | Healthcare Provider | 31,835 | 7 Aug 2024 | |||
| CVS Pharmacy | Healthcare Provider | 26,234 | 24 Jul 2020 | |||
| CVS Caremark Part D Services, L.L.C. ("CVS") | Business Associate | 11,193 | 23 Feb 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 999.
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.