The underlying thinking is that with greater transparency, consumers can take a more active role in affecting the culture of the corporate world – most notably, through their collective purchasing power. As founder Michael Mossoba notes in an article for Advertising Age, “When consumers are empowered to evaluate companies based on data rather than preconceptions, companies have a business case to compete with their peers on social responsibility.” A fact that has real implications for the ways corporations operate and ultimately, for society as a whole.

Mossoba admits that while the data is far from comprehensive, it is designed to get the conversation started and lead to further examinations of the companies and brands that we’re choosing to spend our money on.

[image via jvc]

While the move is on to develop the algorithm that will make this idea a reality and no doubt revolutionize the way we consume our stream of information in process, what might the search look like and how will it function exactly? ReadWriteWeb provides an excellent analysis of how our future searches will function based on what they refer to as “Social Relevancy Rank,” a constantly updating feed of data filtered through the people in our trusted networks.

Based on this model, the most relevant information would come directly from your closest (online) friends and then move downward through a progression of an ever widening web of affiliations – taste neighbors to friends of friends to influencers – until it final reaches results from the crowd.

If it works, it would create an entirely new level of value to our time spent online and one imagines would most benefit the relatively small (but growing) community of creators – thought leaders, bloggers, designers etc. – who are actively engaging with the web at large. If such an engine were to take hold it will be interesting to see how the information reordering takes shape, particularly when it comes to corporations and to a lesser extent traditional media outlets.

Unsurprisingly, Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore is ranked first, with Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN), Ronald Reagan UCLA (Los Angeles), Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland, OH), and Massachusetts General (Boston, MA) rounding out the top five. The rubric used is a gradation of complicated medical procedures – not an amalgam of figures on routine appendectomies – plus considerations of reputation, mortality rate, patient safety, and other care-related factors. (Specific details on the ranking system is archived here.)

One of the most important factors to consider for the future is how these outstanding hospitals are adapting high technology and how they can use new information and processes to further augment their good reputations. From five-foot robots who make regular doctors’ rounds in a critical care unit without disturbing other patients to radio frequency ID tags, to “smart” beds that transmit patient vital signs to the nurses’ desk, technology advancements are helping hospital operations in ways one could hardly conceive of even fifteen years ago. And according to industry analyst Datamonitor, spending on “telemedicine” will reach $2.4 billion this year and nearly triple to $6.1 billion by 2012. All this points to vast opportunity for investment in innovations that have healthcare applications.

Remote diagnosis, a robotic technology that allows a specialist in somewhere like Detroit to manage care in far-flung locales can make a major difference in time sensitive stroke management. Many also tout robots for highly-skilled surgical exploration, asserting that hands are steadier and provide a wider range of motion than human hands.

Healthcare information technology is another area with much room for improvement, and one that could vastly change the landscape of healthcare reform.   A program that could, say, digitize mass amounts of patient data, could speed diagnosis and eliminate unneccessary treatments and testing.

It’s an exciting time in the field of medicine, both for investors, innovative entrepreneurs and the target audience they seek to reach through these new technologies.