When Infant Formula Was Scarce, Community Was the Solution

Lisa Guidry’s work as a nurse care manager at Elevance Health’s affiliated health plan in Louisiana centers around helping members with health concerns. For two families experiencing a critical need during an extraordinary crisis, Guidry became the bridge that connected them to the formula they desperately needed to feed their children.

For several agonizing months in 2022, families across the country — who could once easily find specific types of formula for their children — were fearful of being cut off from meeting this basic need. Supply chain issues and the recall of several infant formula products caused a severe national shortage of formula. Access to nutritious food is a driver of health and influences the overall health of people of all ages. The lack of formula disrupted the lives and endangered the health of many who depended on it.

Guidry’s determination and compassion epitomized the Elevance Health purpose to improve the health of humanity and exemplified company values such as integrity, leadership, and agility. She works with the family of 2-year-old Javion, who had been diagnosed at birth with failure to thrive and was dependent on one type of formula. Without this specific formula, he would have to be hospitalized. This formula was on the list of those that were in shortage across the country and had been very difficult to obtain. Javion’s mother was desperate to find the formula. She called Guidry, her son’s care manager, in distress: she only had enough formula to feed her son for two more days. 

“I cried with her on the phone, and I told her I’m going to work on it right now,” Guidry said. “I dropped everything and I reached out to my care management team. They jumped right in, and we started making calls.”

Determined to find a solution for Javion and his family, Guidry, her manager Brooke Deykin, and the care management team searched across the state and tracked down retailers that had limited amounts of the formula in stock.

“We found one here, two cans there, three cans here — all over the state of Louisiana, some in Texas,” Deykin said. Guidry and Deykin arranged to have the formula sent to Javion’s family. 

Javion’s mom was grateful her health plan stepped in to help her family, and thrilled her son would have the formula he needed.

Javion and his family.

Lionel and his family.

“You could just hear in her voice, the relief,” Guidry said. “Being a mother myself, I couldn’t imagine knowing what it’s like, not to be able to provide for your baby’s basic need of food.” 

But the story doesn’t end there. Javion’s mom shared that she had new, unopened formula, a type he couldn’t use, and wished another family facing challenges due to the shortage could benefit from the formula.

Guidry immediately thought of another health plan member, Lionel, a 3-year-old on the autism spectrum and a sensory processing disability. He could only take the exact type of formula that Javion couldn’t have. Lionel’s grandmother had traveled to different states trying to find the formula. Guidry gained permission from both caregivers to exchange their contact information, and Lionel received the formula Javion could not use. His grandmother called Guidry in tears; she was so relieved.

“They were happy tears,” Guidry said. “She was so happy, and she’d never heard of an insurance company that would do something like this, getting people together in the community.”