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An Alberta government project to develop a “template” for constructing rural hospitals using the same basic, scalable design has been scrapped, Health Minister Sarah Hoffman said.

Hoffman confirmed to Postmedia in a recent interview that the project has been changed to focus less on architectural drawings and more on guidance to help rural towns plan for their health necessities.

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“The definition of ‘template’ has evolved over time,” she said. “So what maybe we imagined might be the blueprint of a hospital, it’s actually more design tools and planning tools to help individual communities, rather than ‘Here is your modular hospital’.”

The NDP government unveiled the project in its 2016-17 capital budget, committing $3 million to get the work done that fiscal year.

The idea was to draw up plans for a standard rural health facility that could be built in any community approved for a new hospital or urgent care centre. In theory, repeatedly using the same scalable design would lower construction costs and get facilities built faster.