Patent ID: 7018353

Claim:
A method of determining the average hematocrit of blood processed in a blood processing system, comprising: providing a blood processing system having a blood inlet and a blood outlet, the blood processing system being sized to process a known volume of blood during a processing cycle; providing a hematocrit measurement circuit connected to measure the hematocrit of blood flowing through the outlet of the blood processing system, the hematocrit measurement circuit having a display for reporting hematocrit values; determining a minimum volume of the known volume of blood which must be measured for hematocrit in order for an average hematocrit value for the known volume of blood to be calculated within a predetermined degree of accuracy; evacuating processed blood from the system through the blood outlet; making a plurality of hematocrit measurements of the processed blood; calculating from the plurality of hematocrit measurements an average hematocrit value for a first volume of processed blood; and comparing the first volume to the minimum volume.