Hematocrit is the percentage of red blood cells in your blood, normally 34-52% in adults. Low hematocrit means less oxygen reaches your tissues, which happens in anemia, trauma, and infection. Nursing students need to know this paired value with hemoglobin for exams and patient care.
In this video, we are talking all about hematocrit for your nursing school exams because this is one of those lab values that you will have to know everything about pretty much to pass your nursing school exams, because you're going to see it pop up everywhere, my friend. I am telling you. So let's dive into what hematocrit is and everything you have to know about it for nursing school. Let's dive in. Now, hematocrit typically goes hand in hand with hemoglobin. We also call this the H and H. You will be hearing about these two lab values so often in nursing school. So in this video, we're going to dive into hematocrit and break down exactly what you need to know about it to answer your questions about it, of course, on your nursing school exams and of course to care for your patients when you go to clinical. When you hear about H and H, the H and H lab value, you want to immediately think about red blood cells. Both of these measurements will tell you something about the status of the red blood cells. Now, the hematocrit value tells you how many red blood cells there are in relation to the total blood volume. It's a percentage. A normal hematocrit level is around 34 to 52%. So what does this mean exactly? Well, this means that out of all of the blood in the body, 34 to 52% of all of that blood should be specifically red blood cells. I know there's a lot of lab values and ranges that you have to know about in nursing school, so so many of them. Right. So I made a handy cheat sheet for you that has them all listed so you can take it to clinical and then use it while you study. So I'm going to put the link to that lab values cheat sheet in the description below. So be sure to snag that after you watch this video because it's going to help you a ton just to remember all of these things. So let's think about why the percentage of red blood cells hematocrit level is so important. So let's go back to what red blood cells do in the body. When you think of red blood cells, think of oxygen. The red blood cells are the ones who transport oxygen to the body tissues and then they take back the waste back to the lungs, which is carbon dioxide. So if you don't have enough red blood cells, like with things like anemia, you can imagine that the tissues in the body wouldn't be properly oxygenated or the body would have to work harder to be fully oxygenated. So that's why we want to keep a close eye on that hematocrit level. Now some things that hematocrit level are things like trauma, like we said, anemia, infection, maybe malformation of the red blood cells. So since hematocrit is measuring that percentage of healthy red blood cells, remember, it's essentially measuring how effective the blood is going to be able to properly circulate oxygen through the body. Now hematocrit is only one of several lab values of course that you have to know about in nursing school like we mentioned earlier. And I'm going to walk you through the seven key lab values that have to know about in this video here so you can be sure that you are prepared for your nursing school exams. And remember, of course I have that free lab values cheat sheet for you in the description below. So be sure to snag that. And as always my friend, go become the nurse that God created only you to be and I will see you over there in that next video.
