OBJECTIVES: Health care utilization databases or electronic medical records can be very useful to study the use and outcomes of pharmacological and therapeutical measures. There is little information on the availability and accessibility of these types of databases for health and disease management in the Asian Pacific Region. This study is performed to gain more insight in the availability and accessibility of health care utilization databases in AsiaPac. METHODS: Searches were done using Google Scholar, PubMed, ISPOR’s International Digest of Databases and references in publications. Different types of databases were included in the overview, including health insurance databases, claims databases and electronic medical records from primary care of hospitals. Information extracted was: type of database, short description, population covered, start of data collection, variables included, accessibility, URL and English language yes/no. Countries included were Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. RESULTS: Most of the databases originate in Japan and Australia. Taiwan and South Korea have a large health insurance databases covering ~98% of the population. Limited number of databases is available in the other countries investigated. Accessibility could only be derived from the websites that provide an English translation. From these websites it appears that accessibility to these databases is often limited for health policy makers and researchers due to privacy protection issues. CONCLUSIONS: Several valuable health care utilization databases exist in the Asian Pacific region. These databases could be very valuable in drug utilization and health outcomes research if easily available to all researchers.