Volunteer: Technical Assurance Review for a Maternal and Child Health Platform

About the Opportunity

This is a volunteer advisory engagement with Taproot Foundation, a nonprofit creating social change through pro bono connections. The project aims to produce an independent technical assurance report and prioritized risk-remediation plan for Rooted, a patient-centered maternal, newborn, and pediatric health platform developed by Rose City Wellness.

Through this project, you will support our mission by helping build a safe, trustworthy technology foundation for expanding access to continuous maternal, newborn, and family healthcare—especially for low-income, Medicaid-enrolled, uninsured, and rural East Texas families who often experience fragmented care and limited access to maternity services.

Project Scope

The volunteer will review Rooted’s proposed system architecture and foundation plans, assessing:

• Identity and access management
• Audit logging
• Data protection
• Backups and recovery
• System integrations
• Migration from the current platform
• Readiness for future HIPAA-regulated operations

The engagement includes:

• Reviewing selected architecture documents
• Participating in 2–3 virtual meetings
• Identifying significant gaps or risks
• Providing written recommendations categorized by urgency
• Helping define which decisions require additional specialist review before implementation or production use

This is a bounded advisory and assurance engagement—not a request to build the application. The review can be completed using architecture documents and synthetic or nonproduction information; access to patient information is neither anticipated nor requested.

Responsibilities

• Assess the proposed system architecture for security, privacy, reliability, and scalability risks.
• Evaluate readiness for HIPAA compliance and future regulatory requirements.
• Identify gaps in identity/access management, audit logging, data protection, backups, and system integrations.
• Provide actionable, prioritized recommendations to mitigate risks.
• Collaborate with the Rose City Wellness team to clarify requirements and document findings.
• Contribute to formal decision and risk registers, ensuring findings translate into implementation requirements.

Requirements

• Senior-level expertise in healthcare software architecture, cybersecurity, or a related technical leadership role.
• Experience with HIPAA, data protection, and secure system design in healthcare or regulated environments.
• Ability to review architecture documents and provide independent, critical assessments.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills for articulating risks and recommendations.
• Commitment to the project’s timeline and availability for 2–3 virtual meetings.

About Rooted and Rose City Wellness

Rooted is a maternal, newborn, and pediatric health platform designed to connect pregnancy, birth, postpartum, lactation, newborn, pediatric, and mental health information around one longitudinal patient record. The platform aims to address fragmented care and limited access to maternity services for underserved families in East Texas.

Rose City Wellness Mission: Rose City Wellness is committed to transforming maternal and infant health outcomes in our region by providing compassionate, evidence-based care throughout pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and the newborn period. We serve families of all backgrounds—especially those most impacted by health disparities—with holistic services that center dignity, safety, education, and informed choice.

Project Preparation

The Rose City Wellness team has prepared the following materials for review:

• Detailed platform blueprint
• Clinical concept model
• Implementation roadmap
• Responsible AI and safety specification
• Migration inventory
• Initial governance package

The team has also defined:

• Intended users and clinical domains
• System boundaries and implementation sequence
• Release gates and nonnegotiable privacy/safety requirements

The Executive Director and clinical system owner will serve as the volunteer’s primary contacts, providing organized review materials, protecting time for weekly meetings, and responding promptly to questions.