Healthcare Safety Unit
The Healthcare Safety Unit at the Texas Department of State Health Services began in 2010, with the adoption of mandatory healthcare safety date reporting requirements for healthcare facilities in Texas. As the program expanded and evolved in response to the ever-present need for high quality, safe healthcare in Texas, the Healthcare Safety Unit was established.
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Our Mission
The Healthcare Safety Unit (HSU) was created to protect Texans from infectious diseases and harmful events in healthcare. HSU is responsible for mandated and timely healthcare infection control and preventable adverse event response, reporting, and record-keeping to improve patient outcomes and reduce expenditures. Facilities under HSU’s purview include all Texas adult and pediatric hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, long-term and acute care facilities, dental and dialysis clinics.
The Texas Healthcare Safety Plan
The Texas Healthcare Safety Plan 2025-2026 outlines the vision, mission, values, and responsibilities of each team within HSU. The plan further defines HSU priorities for the next two years and the strategies to increase and sustain infection prevention and control (IPC) expertise for Local Health Departments (LHDs) and healthcare facilities in Texas.
The plan will be reviewed and renewed periodically (every one to two years) to reflect HSU continuous effort in Healthcare-Associated Infection (HAI) prevention and control practices, evolving health priorities, and surveillance.