Chief Operating Officer
"St. Bernard Hospital and its dedicated healthcare team are innovative, enthusiastic, and determined in their relentless pursuit to improving the quality of our services. Recent expansion of outpatient program offerings have paved the way to becoming an Integrated Delivery Network (IDN) where the entire spectrum of customer needs can be met. It has been my professional and personal privilege to serve at St. Bernard Hospital, an organization that embodies a true sense of mission and ministry."
Tasked with multiple executive roles over several decades, Roland Abellera has devoted over 27 years to expanding and improving the performance of St. Bernard Hospital across a wide and diverse variety of departments, programs and projects. He delivers leadership and oversight to execute the organization’s strategy around all clinical and operational activities, including in-patient services and ambulatory care, quality compliance, physician recruitment, clinical partnerships, information technology systems and other ancillary departments and functions.
Abellera has ushered in dramatic successes with stepped-up quality initiatives that have led St. Bernard to noteworthy and higher-than-average outcome measures towards a highly focused culture of safety. His work to expand outpatient services paved the way for the construction of the recently opened 70,000 square foot Ambulatory Care Center (ACC), enabling area residents to get specialized treatments and coordinate more of their care close to home. In particular, several formerly scarce service lines have become more available to Medicaid and underserved patients, such as behavioral health and dental care, two areas that now provide prompt access and have earned reputations for their work. The St. Bernard Hospital Dental Center’s recent expansion makes it second only to University of Illinois-Chicago by volume, with a unique emphasis on treating special needs children and adults.
Prior positions within the Hospital include Vice President Clinical and Facility Operations; Chief Quality Officer and VP of Clinical Operations; Vice President Quality and Compliance; Corporate Compliance Officer and Director of Quality and Health Information Management.
Abellera came to St. Bernard having served as: Director of Medical Records at the Joliet Correctional Medical Systems; as a consultant with L.A. Fox & Associates; as Supervisor at the University of Chicago and at Bethany Hospital. He has attended the University of Illinois at Chicago and has received his Bachelor of Science in Health Information Administration Management at Chicago State University.
