We've heard of several companies stepping up to help health care workers and Coronavirus patients, including companies in the automotive industry like Ford. There's an Upstate New York company that's also using their experience in the field to help.

"We took some of our capabilities and we pointed it at the challenges the hospital had," said Marquardt Switches General Manager Kirk Wardell.

Marquardt Switches in Madison County makes switches and controls for the automotive industry and others. They've been deemed an essential business. Their standard switches are used for medical equipment, and are being shipped to local hospitals, but that's not all.

"One of our employees is associated with hospitals, and so we were talking about different ways we could help, and it started with looking into perhaps manufacturing some of the PPE equipment, and what we discovered is that we could use some of our machine capabilities to help out with a specialty connector," Wardell said.

A hose connector is a special piece to connect oxygen to suits. The company's relationship with hospitals is a new type of partnership that could make a big difference.

"It's something that's a very specialized piece that again would have taken several months, if not longer, to try to resolve and with our machine capabilities, our tool room, we're able to turn around in a few days, one to two weeks," said Wardell.

Marquardt is working with hospitals in Central New York right now, and will be reaching out to more hospitals.

"We're looking at this opportunity, but we're also asking about other opportunities," Wardell said. "Is there something else we can do?"

The company will be donating the hose connectors.