The Number of IV Site Infections Has More Than Doubled

The number of IV site infections has more than doubled on a nursing unit. The staff determine common causes include the site is cleaned using inconsistent methods, dressing frequently becomes wet when patient showers, IV tubing is not changed every 48 hours per protocol, and inadequate hand washing of RN prior to insertion. A bar graph demonstrates the frequency in descending order, with 80% of infections being attributed to inadequate hand washing. The quality tool used is a:

A) cause-and-effect diagram.
B) run chart.
C) Pareto chart.
D) flowchart.