By Eleanor Diaz, MSN, BSN, BA, ACM-RN, ONN-CG
I am one of the chairpersons of the Education Committee of the Case Management Society of America (CMSA) Houston/Gulf Coast Chapter, who attended the CMSA National Conference on June 24–27, 2025, in Dallas, Texas. I was with Christine Tagaylo, my co-chairperson, and Saji Paul, who is with the membership of the same CMSA chapter.
We boarded the same airline and stayed together in one hotel room. Christine and I were first-time attendees of the national conference. Our attendance was made possible after our chapter board of directors approved the budget for educational advancement, which was offered across the board. After hearing about the budget approval, which was announced during one of the chapter meetings, Christine and I were bursting with joy. We immediately made the decision to register for the national conference, as we were both very enthusiastic about learning new things. After all, the mission of CMSA is to advance the profession of case management and its practitioners. Thereby delivering improved health outcomes to our patients and clientele through high-quality and ethical case management practice, which can be achieved through education or professional advancement.
CMSA conferences, be they national or local, have so many benefits. The overall benefits are widening networking opportunities, and the massive professional growth is incomparable. Interacting with different professionals from all over the country is a significant milestone in my professional journey, as I had the rare privilege of mingling and learning from some of the most successful case management leaders and mentors, who remain down-to-earth despite their long academic accolades. Their inspirational stories have challenged me to continue my membership with CMSA, remain as a board member at the local chapter, aim to volunteer at the national level if given the opportunity, and with the goal of getting CCM certification. Most of all, I got to meet new friends from different levels of care, who provided new insights into this profession.
Through this conference I realized how valuable case management is in the healthcare industry and how much impact a case manager can have on someone’s life. I couldn’t be prouder of this profession until I attended the national conference. I am ready to shout to the whole world my professional title as a case manager due to the integrity and credibility attached to it. This profession is not about income, not only about networking, not just about professional gain, not about prestige; it’s mainly about genuine services and promoting quality of care across continuum.
After seeing the value of joining professional organizations and attending conferences, I strongly encourage anyone out there to learn to fly and spread your wings and embrace new learnings to stay abreast of the current trends in the healthcare world. This way, you and I become empowered and ready to face the continuous dynamic changes in the healthcare industry, just like Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is actively being integrated into case management. Let us learn together and welcome it with optimism! Let education be our vital guide in navigating the challenges in the case management field.
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Biography: Eleanor spent 16 years in the teaching profession, both in the Philippines and the United States. She switched careers from education to nursing after she got accepted from The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas for the BSN program and graduated in 2007. She joined Park Plaza Medical Center in Houston, TX as a graduate nurse. Then, transferred to St. Luke’s Medical Center, which is situated at the world-renowned Texas Medical Center, where she started her case management role in March 2012. Four years later, she was hired to the Case Management Department at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and remains employed at this research institution as a case manager navigator. While working at MD Anderson, she attended The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) and graduated from her MSN-Nursing Administration in December 2017.