Enhancing laboratory detection of disease. Part I: The concept of syndromic classification.

Syndromic classifications differ from other taxonomies because they build on an ideal theoretical information standard to amplify information. This ideal standard, a truth table with requisite variety, h, equal to or greater than the generated symbols or system it seeks to control, preserves all of the information about the disease state available in the database. Such a system, interestingly enough, theoretically has no beta errors (diagnostic misses) because all possible alternative disease hypotheses are created by the proper-sized truth table that controls the diagnostic system. Subsequent articles will examine the process in more detail.