Canadian telecommunications giant, Telus Corp., has revealed plans to invest $100 million in its health-care technology division over the next three years, as it seeks diversified revenue opportunities in the face of global economic turmoil.

The health-care business will be unified under the ‘Telus Health Solutions’ brand name, and will build and run networks to share medical records and other information. It is based on technology from Emergis, a Montreal-based e-commerce and medical software provider acquired by Telus earlier this year.

The plan was referred to as a “master stroke” by AR Communications analyst, Carmi Levy, who noted that “the waters are turbulent and they’re only going to become more so in telecom in the years to come.”

Telus “is leveraging its core competencies as a company that delivers technology solutions into a market sector that is much less competitive at this point in time and much more capable of delivering high-margin revenues over a sustained period of time,” Levy said.