Rochelle Johnson

Rochelle Johnson is the director of Nursing for the Regions Hospital Birth Center in St. Paul, Minn. Regions Hospital is part of the HealthPartners family of care and is the largest hospital in the system, a 500-plus bed Level 1 Adult and Pediatric Trauma center. Approximately 2,500 births are seen at Regions each year.

As director of Nursing for this large inner-city Birth Center, Rochelle has worked to create an open line of communication with community partners in order to impact maternal and infant health. More than 60 percent of women served in this Birth Center come from African American, Latin America, and Asian American backgrounds with 25 percent of patients requiring interpretation support for their care. With a focus on health equity, Rochelle has a passion for addressing the disparities that exist for people of color, especially maternal and fetal health outcomes, so she works to create meaningful community partnerships in order to address social determinant of health, both before and after delivery.

In her role as director of Nursing at Regions Birth Center, Rochelle partners to lead initiatives and projects for the seven hospitals in the HealthPartners system accounting for more than 10,000 deliveries in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Rochelle is a registered nurse with a Master of Science in nursing leadership and a Master of Business Administration. She recently returned to the United States after working in Doha, Qatar, helping to commission a 500-plus bed Women’s and Children’s academic medical center.