Washington Revised Code Title 18. Businesses and Professions § 18.56.010. Intent

(1) The legislature recognizes the importance of allowing licensed practitioners to use their professional judgment, based on their education, training, and expertise, to determine the appropriate use of current and future technologies to enhance patient care. Guidelines for providing health care services through remote technology have been addressed by the medical community, and the legislature intends to complement and clarify those guidelines with respect to using remote technology to provide prescriptions for corrective lenses.

(2) The legislature also recognizes that health care consumers, including eye health care consumers, can benefit from developments in technology that offer advantages such as increased convenience or increased speed in delivery of services. However, the legislature recognizes that health care consumers can be misled or harmed by the use of developments in technology that are not properly supervised by qualified providers.

(3) The legislature recognizes that the use of technology that permits a consumer to submit data to an entity for the purposes of obtaining a prescription for corrective lenses, including contact lenses, may fail to detect serious eye health issues resulting in permanent vision loss if the patient is not also receiving comprehensive eye care according to standard of care.

(4) Therefore, the legislature concludes that consumers should be protected from improper or unsupervised use of technology for purposes of obtaining a prescription for corrective lenses, without unduly restricting the development and implementation of technology and without unduly restricting licensed practitioners from using such technology where appropriate.