(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.

Source Note: The provisions of this §103.1 adopted to be effective December 16, 2007, 32 TexReg 9130; amended to be effective April 2, 2017, 42 TexReg 1457