If you are going to have an emergency concerning your teeth you might as well have it in the Southern Health Board area. If, for instance, the fillings put in by your dentist in Sneem, Co Kerry, fell out in Castletownbere, Co Cork, you wouldn't have to travel back to have matters looked after.
Instead, you could call on the high-tech expertise available under the appropriately named "bridges" dental scheme.
Supposing the Sneem dentist was on holiday and the treatment given had been of a specialist nature? Not a problem, according to Mr Niall O'Neill, principal dental surgeon in the north Cork area, who is overseeing the scheme.
A computer program, developed by Integrated Data Associates of Galway and SHB dentists, allows direct online communications between 60 dental clinics throughout the board's region.
The Castletownbere dentist will be able to call up your Sneem records on his screen, examine X-rays and other relevant material concerning the case, and proceed accordingly.
The scheme was piloted in the North Lee Community Care Area in Cork in 1998 and has been refined to give the clinics in Cork and Kerry a powerful tool in diagnostic and remedial dentistry.
It is far more efficient and quickly accessible than a paper filing system, according to Mr O'Neill. For the past three years, dentists and dental staff in the region have been learning how to operate via computer link-up.
Some 120 staff availed of the European Computer Driving Licence courses.
This doesn't mean that someone idling away some hours in front of a computer can access information about the few molars you may have left. The system is secure and includes an audit trail of who last logged on and why, Mr O'Neill says.
Only accredited participants will be able to unlock files, he adds.
The scheme is a first in Irish dentistry and is being monitored by the other nine health boards in the Republic.