BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) - A $25 million medical campus planned north of Red Lodge would combine a hospital, clinic and long-term care facilities in "a new model for rural health care," organizers announced.

Red Lodge's Beartooth Hospital and Health Center, Billings Clinic and St. John's Lutheran Ministries announced plans for the complex in a press conference Thursday.

"We really are forming a new model for rural health care," said Linda Harris, chairwoman of the Beartooth Hospital and Health Center board of directors.

The project will replace Red Lodge's aging critical-access hospital and its nursing home, as well as relocate Billings Clinic's Red Lodge Clinic.

Ground could be broken as soon as spring 2008, with completion scheduled for 18 months later.

Five buildings are to be built on about 13 acres adjacent to Highway 212 just outside Red Lodge. The town's hospital association bought the land for $600,000 about 18 months ago.

The clinic and hospital will be housed in a single 40,000-square-foot building expected to cost about $15 million.

St. John's Lutheran Ministries plans to build three skilled-nursing cottages, an assisted-living cottage and a 36-unit independent-living complex adjacent to the medical building for about $10 million.

The facilities will share laboratory, radiology, laundry and food services.

The partnership will help each organization operate more efficiently, said Kelley Evans, chief executive officer for Beartooth Hospital and Health Center.

"In rural communities, we often get isolated in our silos of care," Evans said. "That results in duplication of services."