The local hospital stands in the first line to keep the general population health. To explore the characteristics of the patients who were referred from the emergency department (ED) could be a guide of the further development of the local community hospital. This is a retrospective study based on a community local hospital in Nantou County in Taiwan. The basic data, including age and gender, trauma、non-trauma, visiting time and routes were collected via the central computer system. From August 1 to 31 in 2009, there are 2446 visiting records, and 19 were excluded because of incomplete data. The overall referrer rate is 2.9%, including 59.2% male and 40.8% female.。The referral rate is high in patients with higher triage level, and those who are sent to ED via emergency medicine service (EMS). Age is also an important factor. The elderly patients are easily referred from a local community hospital, and the pediatric patients are referred rare. The local community hospital should pay more attention on the elderly care, both in trauma and non-trauma patients. The ED of the local hospital should not only focus on the decreasing in referral but also the safety and standard operation procedure in the current referrer.
