NEWS RELEASE

Contact: Sarah Youngerman, Minnesota Medical Foundation, 612-626-5378
Molly Portz, Academic Health Center, 612-625-2640
Ryan Davenport, Fairview Health Services, 612-672-4164
  

$50 MILLION GIFT TO U OF M CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL
Gift names hospital; honors life work of Kurt Amplatz, M.D.

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (February 10, 2009) – Fairview Health Services and the University of Minnesota announced today a gift of $50 million from Caroline Amplatz, J.D., to honor her father, former University professor and medical device pioneer Kurt Amplatz, M.D. In recognition of the gift, the new facility will be named University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital. The hospital, which broke ground last summer, is on schedule to open by mid-2011.

“I am thankful that all of you have joined me in honoring my father as a humanitarian,” said Caroline Amplatz. “Today we can celebrate for the children and their families who will benefit from this new hospital. My hope is that the Amplatz Children’s Hospital will follow in my father’s footsteps with steadfast and unrelenting determination to improve and save lives. I know that by embracing this history, the new pediatric hospital will be the best in the world.”

“This gift provides our community a chance to honor one of the great pioneers of medical research and of Minnesota’s medical device industry,” said Robert Bruininks, Ph.D., president of the University of Minnesota. “A contemporary of Dr. C. Walton Lillehei and Earl Bakken, Kurt Amplatz is a trailblazer who continues to be committed to improving patients’ lives through the development of innovative technologies. This gift is a tribute to a man who has touched many lives, but also to his daughter Caroline, her sense of history and her vision.”

The new state-of-the-art University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital will be an ecologically friendly, 96-bed, 227,000-square-foot facility that consolidates in one patient- and family-centered location the hospital’s 50 pediatric specialties. This is not an expansion of pediatric beds, but a replacement of children’s services that are challenging to access in the current hospital configuration in which children’s services are housed within the adult hospital. The project’s estimated cost is $275 million—$175 million of which has been secured in bonds for financing; the remaining $100 million will be raised through philanthropy.

“The gift from Caroline Amplatz advances our vision to create a new children’s hospital facility on the Riverside campus uniting mothers’ and children’s services in one family-friendly location,” said Mark Eustis, Fairview president and CEO. “The new facility also will house some of the country’s leading pediatric research programs. It is very fitting for this new building to bear the name of an esteemed U of M researcher.”  

Caroline Amplatz’s gift of $50 million over 12 years will help pay for the programs and infrastructure needed to support pediatric research and care. Among the areas that will benefit from the gift is a pediatric hybrid catheterization lab designed to accommodate both a cardiac surgical team and an interventional cardiology team to treat children with damaged hearts. The hybrid lab allows for surgical intervention if necessary during a less invasive interventional procedure, eliminating the need for more anesthesia and reducing the child’s hospital visits. In addition, the gift will support Adopt A Room, a philanthropy-supported program that creates family-friendly private rooms featuring state-of-the-art technology and special features that pediatric patients can control themselves.

Kurt Amplatz, a professor of radiology for 40 years, joined the University in 1957 and retired in 1999. A pioneer in the use of noninvasive techniques, he holds more than 30 patents. His inventions bridged medical disciplines and included devices such as high-resolution x-ray equipment, heparin-coated guide wires, sheathed needles for angiography, specially shaped cardiac catheters and vascular occlusion devices. The most famous of his inventions is the Amplatzer® septal occluder, a tiny device used to repair a congenital heart defect in children and adults. It replaced open-heart surgery as the treatment of choice for many thousands of patients.

Watch the video and learn more about Dr. Amplatz's achievements.

About University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital
Part of Fairview Health Services, University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital opened in 1911 as Minnesota’s first children’s hospital. Today, it is known worldwide for innovative care for children with common to complex medical conditions. As Minnesota’s only children’s hospital that’s part of an academic health center, University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital is home to one of the nation’s top-20 pediatric research programs. Here, physicians and nurses not only deliver the latest innovations, they create them.

University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital is known for many “firsts,” including the world’s first pediatric open-heart surgery, first umbilical cord blood transplant for a child with leukemia, Minnesota’s first robotic surgery on a child and its first Berlin Heart® implant. U.S. News & World Report currently ranks University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital’s Respiratory/Cystic Fibrosis, and Cancer programs among the nation’s best in children’s health., The hospital’s neonatal care team also is cited as being among the nation’s very best.

University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital ranks among just 4 percent of health care organizations to achieve Magnet designation for excellence in nursing services by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Magnet Recognition Program®. Recognized as a Magnet facility for its quality patient care, nursing excellence and innovations in professional nursing practice, the hospital has achieved one of the highest levels of recognition.

For more information about University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital, visit uofmchildrenshospital.org.

About the Minnesota Medical Foundation
Founded in 1939, the Minnesota Medical Foundation raises millions of dollars annually for health-related research, education and service at the University of Minnesota, with gifts supporting research, academic programs, faculty positions, scholarships, facilities and equipment purchases. Gifts directed to research fund studies related to children’s health, public health, cancer, heart and lung disease, diabetes, infectious diseases and other critical illnesses. For more information about the foundation, please call 612-625-1440 or visit www.mmf.umn.edu.