Surgeries that usually rely on use of technology such as heart operations had higher rate of technical glitches than general operations.
The new study, published in the BMJ Quality & Safety journal, classified problems related to equipment into three segments.
It found that insufficient availability of required equipment was responsible in 37% of the cases; problems related to device configuration was found in 44% of cases; and improper functioning of the device was identified in 33% of the cases.
According to the study, equipment checks done before surgeries, organising training programs for the staff on equipment handling could minimize these errors by at least 50%.
"There is clear benefit in the use of preoperative checklist-based systems, by which a large proportion of equipment-related error and overall error can be reduced," the researchers said.
According to the researchers, World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist should include equipment checks before surgeries.
