Objective To a nursing safety management index system for department of cardiology, and to promote continuous improvement of nursing safety in cardiac medical wards. Methods Through literature review, qualitative research, Delphi expert consultation and analytic hierarchy process, a nursing safety management index system for department of cardiology was established and the weights of the indexes were determined. Results In the two rounds of expert consultation, expert response rate was 100% and 88.24%; the authority coefficient of experts was 0.903 and 0.900, and the coordination coefficient was 0.278 and 0.293 respectively (P＜0.01 for both).The nursing safety management index system for department of cardiology consists of 6 first-level indexes （nursing personnel factor, patient factor, caregiver factor, environmental factor, organizational factor and methodological factor）, 16 second-level indexes, and 59 third-level ones. Conclusion The nursing safety management index system for department of cardiology enjoys high reliability, which still needs further validation before it is used by nursing managers to evaluate nursing safety in department of cardiology.