Aggregate analysis of sentinel events as a strategic tool in safety management can contribute to the improvement of healthcare safety.

Objective: To examine if clustering of root causes of sentinel events (SEs) can contribute to organisational improvement of healthcare and patient safety by providing insight into organisational risk factors, patterns and trends.

Design: Retrospective, cross-sectional review of SEs from a hospital database reported to the Board of directors in 2016.

Setting: A regional teaching hospital in the Netherlands.