On Feb 10, 2009, Caroline Amplatz pledged $50-million to the Minnesota Medical Foundation, in Minneapolis, to support the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital. The hospital was named for her father, Kurt Amplatz, MD, who was a professor of radiology at the University of Minnesota from 1957 to 1997.

In 1997, Dr. Amplatz and son-in-law Frank Gougeon founded AGA Medical, based in Plymouth, which designed and sold small devices that closed defects in the heart. The company was sold to St. Jude Medical in 2010 for $1.3 billion, and has been an Abbott company since 2017.

Amplatz invented the Amplatzer Septal Occluder that is inserted by percutaneous catheter placement, thus avoiding open heart surgery. Amplatz was a world-renowned pioneer in interventional radiology and pediatric cardiology.