TYPE THE LETTERS  “TEPR” into a search engine and you’ll likely come up with two items: The Towards the Electronic Patient Record conference and a French electronic musician.

It’s not known if French electronica is making any inroads in the American music scene, but the TEPR conference, now in its 24th year, could use a revival. And that’s exactly what C. Peter Waegemann has in mind when TEPR 2008 opens this May in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

“The focus had always been on EMRs (electronic medical records),” said the CEO of the Boston-based Medical Records Institute, which organizes and hosts TEPR. “They’re still at the heart of things, but there is a revolution going on in healthcare right now, and we need to focus on that.”

TEPR 2007, held last May in Dallas, drew an estimated 2,500 attendees and vendors and a fair amount of criticism. Bloggers and healthcare journalists who covered the conference said it was underwhelming. That prompted MRI to, as Waegemann puts it, “take a hard look at TEPR altogether.”

“No one should expect the same thing this year,” he said. “This conference is going to give people fresh ideas.”