tl;dr - The US has similar "sentinel events" that are decided upon by a not for profit Joint Commission organization that accredits health facilities across the US. Failure to "respond" to a sentinel event and make meaningful attempts to prevent future occurrences can jeopardize a hospital's accreditation. Hospitals voluntarily report "most" sentinel events to the Joint Commission so their data is explicitly not usable for frequency/trending over time.
To add additional info on the subject, the US employs a similar concept (and name) to "sentinel events." Relevant to surgery, this includes:
"Invasive procedure, including surgery, on the wrong patient, at the wrong site, or that is the wrong (unintended) procedure"
"Unintended retention of a foreign object in a patient after an invasive procedure, including surgery"
More broadly, sentinel events are generally defined as:
"a patient safety event...[that] results in any of the following:
Death
Permanent harm
Severe temporary harm" (1)
Outside of surgery, there are around a dozen additional, specific events that are always deemed to be "sentinel events." This includes forms of assault, abduction, unauthorized departure (i.e. the medical team has not yet discharged the patient) leading to patient death/harm, and specific, highly avoidable outcomes due to standardized procedures such as blood transfusions, too much bilirubin in newborns, and prolonged radiation. (1)
These sentinel events policies are guided by the Joint Commission in the US, a not for profit organization that guides many patient safety initiatives and accredits health facilities in the US. At least for hospitals, site visits are unannounced around every 3 years. (2) Failure to gain/maintain accreditation, among many outcomes, threatens a hospital's ability to participate in Medicare/Medicaid as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) considers the Joint Commission a national accrediting organization. (3) Revenues from Medicare + Medicaid are generally essential for the solvency of a high majority of hospitals in the US - in 2013, the national average was ~58% of hospital revenues (4).
Hospitals are "strongly encouraged" to report sentinel events to the Joint Commission but it remains voluntarily. Thus, the Joint Commission's data is available but explicitly not "an epidemiologic data set and no conclusions should be drawn about the actual relative frequency of events or trends in events over time" (5)
However, hospitals are "required" to respond to a sentinel event through a comprehensive analysis and planning to prevent future occurrences. If the Joint Commission becomes aware of an event during a site review or other means that was not addressed in compliance with the lengthy review policy required, then the facility will risk its accreditation status. (1)
(Post often references "hospitals" but applies to many health facility types.)
(1) [PDF] https://www.jointcommission.org/assets/1/6/SE_CAMOBS_2016Upd..., from http://www.jointcommission.org/sentinel_event_policy_and_pro...
(2) http://www.jointcommission.org/mobile/faq.aspx
(3) http://www.jointcommission.org/faqs_ccn/
(4) [Point 27] http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-adm...
(5) http://www.jointcommission.org/sentinel_event_data_general/