Hematocrit measurement technology for use in low-resource environments utilizing a microfluidic disk with optical reader

A portable hematocrit measurement technology is desired to allow for the rapid screening of anemia in low-resource environments. In this work, we describe the development of a microfluidic disk that is combined with a novel optical hematocrit reader to enable the screening of anemia in a point-of-care format. The system features a three-chamber microfluidic disk that interfaces with a microcentrifuge to achieve separation of a 15 μL blood sample. The hematocrit of the separated sample is then measured by the optical reader using red, green, blue color analysis. If successful, this system could enable the screening of anemia in a variety of resource-poor settings.