22:28 Oct 28 

That said, the source sentence is certainly ambiguous as it stands, even to a native English speaking physician with a thirty years of experience in the field. The source of the ambiguity is the lack of an object for "index of suspicion". If the object is implied by the surrounding context, the meaning of the statement may become clear. As it stands, another possible interpretation could be "expanding the breadth of possible diagnoses should lead to a quicker solution" or something to that effect; ie being suspicious of everything may lead to a quicker diagnosis, a paradoxical but plausible observation. ;-)

22:02 Oct 28 

Index of suspicion...

This is a phrase that we physicians use all the time. It is generally used as part of a larger phrase such "This raises my index of suspicion for pneumonia". Raising the index of suspicion for a particular disease means that one is assigning a higher level of probability that the particular disease is the correct diagnosis.