One in four surgical errors are caused due to technology or equipment issues, and checks on medical devices before undertaking a surgery could reduce these problems, according to a new study.
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.