(a) These sections implement the following Health and
Safety Codes.
(1) Chapter 92 authorizes the Executive Commissioner
to adopt rules concerning the reporting and control of injuries.
(2) Chapter 773, §773.112(c) and §773.113(a)(3),
requires the department to establish and maintain a trauma reporting
and analysis system.
(3) The Texas Department of Health and the Texas Board
of Health were abolished by Chapter 198, §1.18 and §1.26,
78th Legislature, Regular Session, 2003. Health and Safety Code, Chapter
1001, establishes the Department of State Health Services (department),
which now administers these programs. Government Code, §531.0055,
provides authority to the Executive Commissioner of the Health and
Human Services Commission to adopt rules for the department.
(b) The Executive Commissioner or the Executive Commissioner's
designee shall, as circumstances may require, proceed as follows.
(1) May contact a medical examiner, justice of the
peace, physician, hospital, or acute or post-acute rehabilitation
facility attending a person with a case or suspected case of a required
reportable event.
(2) May provide aggregate data with the suppression
of values at the discretion of the Texas EMS & Trauma Registries.
(3) May release data to other areas of the department.
(4) May give information concerning the injury or its
prevention to the patient or a responsible member of the patient's
household to prevent further injury.
(5) May collect, or cause to be collected, medical,
demographic, or epidemiological information from any medical or laboratory
record or file to help the department in the epidemiologic evaluation
of injuries and their causes.
(6) Investigation may be made by staff of the department
for verifying the diagnosis, ascertaining the cause of the injury,
obtaining a history of circumstances surrounding the injury, and discovering
unreported cases.
(A) May enter at reasonable times and inspect within
reasonable limits, a public place or building, including a public
conveyance, in the Commissioner's duty to prevent injury.
(B) May not enter a private residence to conduct an
investigation about the causes of injuries without first receiving
permission from a lawful adult occupant of the residence.
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