If you seek treatment at one of the community hospitals surveyed in a recently released study, chances are one in 10 you’ll suffer an injury due to a prescription mistake. This news might put many patients ill at ease. Though a visceral reaction would be to demand immediate upgrades to every hospital, the best way to ensure hospital safety is to take a slower approach. Instead of rushing hospitals’ digital upgrades — which may well cause more mistakes — medical officials should strengthen existing safeguards that prevent mistakes made using old-fashioned pen and paper, while technological improvements occur at a safe pace.

Human error is always a factor at hospitals, and as unsettling as the latest study on the subject from the New England Healthcare Institute may seem, it is indicative of national misprescription rates. It is easy for a nurse to misread a doctor’s prescription or for practitioners manning different shifts to miscommunicate. Upgrades that computerize these prescriptions reduce — though they do not eliminate — the chance for these mistakes. These upgrades cost little and may save on malpractice costs. Lawmakers should pass the legislation proposed by the study’s authors to computerize these prescriptions.

Still, these changes would prove useless if rushed. All medical equipment — including something as simple as a bar code scanner, must be carefully inspected by the FDA before use. Otherwise, the same defects that plague other consumer products we use everyday would reach hospitals with far deadlier consequences. Four years, as suggested by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, seems like adequate time to finish these upgrades. Until then, patients should take comfort in the fact that hospitals will do everything possible to prevent such mistakes.