Another first at Ronnie Green Heart Center

GAINESVILLE - Another first for the Ronnie Green Heart Center at Northeast Georgia Medical Center: the use of a procedure called heart port surgery.

Heart port surgery is an open heart procedure that involves only an incision that is three-to-four inches long as opposed to traditional open heart surgery during which the chest is cut open.

The first surgery involving this process was performed on Kathleen Hartigan of Cleveland and was used for a valve replacement.

She was sent home three days after the procedure.