Western High School Alumni
Baltimore, Maryland (MD)
Alumni Stories
Jacquelyn (Keyes) Gaines
Class of 1975
Jackie is a high performing Senior Executive with a progressive career encompassing more than 25 years of sustained leadership and accomplishments with major health systems and organizations. With passion, creative energy and vision, motivates diverse groups of people toward success. She has dedicated most of her career to the advancement of quality health care programs throughout the United States, particularly those focused on the care of the poor and underserved. She has worked in a variety of roles, starting her career as a nurse working for Johns Hopkins Health Institutions, including management, health education, and program coordination. Upon graduation from her master's program she went to work for Health Care for the Homeless, Inc in Baltimore, Maryland as a Nurse Practitioner serving over 50,000 vulnerable patients per year in clinics, shelters and the streets. In 1987, she was appointed as its first President & CEO and developed this organization over her 13 year tenure into a national model in health care delivery for vulnerable people. As a result of her expertise in this field, Jackie has consulted all over the United States for the U.S. Public Health Services in program development, evaluation, governance, community collaboration, public policy, advocacy and fundraising.
In 1999, Jackie returned to a hospital based delivery system when she was appointed as the Vice President of Community Health Systems Integration for Bon Secours Baltimore Health System. There Jackie led an effective $15 million turn-around initiative called Transformation 2000, decreasing that organization's deficit to break even over a 2 year period. In the summer of 2000 Jackie was recruited to join the Providence Health System family in Oregon where she was the Chief Executive for Providence Milwaukee Hospital and Regional Chief Executive for Ancillary Business lines across Providence hospitals in Oregon, including: radiology, laboratories and pathology, pharmacies, respiratory therapy, sleep labs and the Center on Aging. During her seven year tenure at Providence, Jackie took Providence Milwaukee to Top 100 Hospital in the U.S. three times and implemented the organization's Family Practice Residency Program and raised millions of dollars to support expanded services for the community. In 2007 Jackie left Providence to become the President and CEO of Mercy Health Partners for Northeast Pennsylvania, where she had oversight for two hospitals and 15 other freestanding clinics and diagnostic centers. In that role she was one of handful of minority women in U.S. history ever to run a health system.
Jackie travels all over the country telling her story and the leadership lessons learned throughout her career and has received numerous awards along the way. Guest lecturer at numerous universities including University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, Oregon State University, Hershey Medical Center, Penn State University and Cornell University to name a few. She also continues to give back to the community by serving on numerous boards and task forces no matter where she has lived or worked. Prior to moving to Pennsylvania, Jackie was the first minority and woman to serve as the Campaign Chair for the United Way of the Columbia Willamette raising over $18 million. It would not be unusual to see Jackie walking the halls of our nation's capital buildings advocating for health care access for all.
She has written and published her first book, “Believing You Can Fly†which offers insight to her career journey in an attempt to inspire others to pursue their dreams against what may seem to be insurmountable odds.
Today, Jackie is an Executive Coach for Studer Group. Studer Group is an outcomes based health care consulting firm devoted to teaching evidence-based tools and processes that organizations can immediately use to create and sustain outcomes in service and operational excellence. Partner organizations see clear results in the areas of higher employee retention, greater patient and customer satisfaction, healthy financials, growing market share, and improvements in various other quality indicators. Studer Group has worked with hundreds of health care systems, hospitals, and medical groups since the firm’s inception in 1999 and additionally is operating in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
In 1999, Jackie returned to a hospital based delivery system when she was appointed as the Vice President of Community Health Systems Integration for Bon Secours Baltimore Health System. There Jackie led an effective $15 million turn-around initiative called Transformation 2000, decreasing that organization's deficit to break even over a 2 year period. In the summer of 2000 Jackie was recruited to join the Providence Health System family in Oregon where she was the Chief Executive for Providence Milwaukee Hospital and Regional Chief Executive for Ancillary Business lines across Providence hospitals in Oregon, including: radiology, laboratories and pathology, pharmacies, respiratory therapy, sleep labs and the Center on Aging. During her seven year tenure at Providence, Jackie took Providence Milwaukee to Top 100 Hospital in the U.S. three times and implemented the organization's Family Practice Residency Program and raised millions of dollars to support expanded services for the community. In 2007 Jackie left Providence to become the President and CEO of Mercy Health Partners for Northeast Pennsylvania, where she had oversight for two hospitals and 15 other freestanding clinics and diagnostic centers. In that role she was one of handful of minority women in U.S. history ever to run a health system.
Jackie travels all over the country telling her story and the leadership lessons learned throughout her career and has received numerous awards along the way. Guest lecturer at numerous universities including University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, Oregon State University, Hershey Medical Center, Penn State University and Cornell University to name a few. She also continues to give back to the community by serving on numerous boards and task forces no matter where she has lived or worked. Prior to moving to Pennsylvania, Jackie was the first minority and woman to serve as the Campaign Chair for the United Way of the Columbia Willamette raising over $18 million. It would not be unusual to see Jackie walking the halls of our nation's capital buildings advocating for health care access for all.
She has written and published her first book, “Believing You Can Fly†which offers insight to her career journey in an attempt to inspire others to pursue their dreams against what may seem to be insurmountable odds.
Today, Jackie is an Executive Coach for Studer Group. Studer Group is an outcomes based health care consulting firm devoted to teaching evidence-based tools and processes that organizations can immediately use to create and sustain outcomes in service and operational excellence. Partner organizations see clear results in the areas of higher employee retention, greater patient and customer satisfaction, healthy financials, growing market share, and improvements in various other quality indicators. Studer Group has worked with hundreds of health care systems, hospitals, and medical groups since the firm’s inception in 1999 and additionally is operating in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Recent Members
Aleta Greene | 1969 |
Beverly Beverly Slawson | 1969 |
Carolyn Hopkins | 1966 |
Cynthia Cynthia Hall | 1975 |
Jamiyah Jamiyah Mcdougald | 2007 |
Kim Kim Higgins | 1989 |
Stephanie Red | 2016 |
Tara Stith | 2008 |
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