California health system Sutter Health has launched a new iOS app that now includes telemedicine via MDLive, a company Sutter invested in early last year.

The app, for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, includes a symptom checker, access to a My Health Online patient portal via Epic, and the aforementioned video visit capabilities. It also has geographic locators for doctors, labs, and other care centers.

"At Sutter Health, we share a promise to create a more personalized, high-value health care experience for our patients and their families through partnership,” Sutter Health president and CEO Pat Fry said in a statement. “Technology like the Sutter Health app improves this partnership by bringing us closer together -- when and where consumers want to access our services and physicians.”

Via MDLive, patients will be able to set up virtual visits in the app via phone or video. Sutter Health participated in a $23.6 million funding round for MDLive last year, and at the time MDLive CEO Randy Parker told MobiHealthNews that his company was working to integrate its virtual care service with brick and mortar healthcare providers like Sutter and Sentara Healthcare, another investor.

“We are building a national integrated delivery network allowing the virtual care of MDLive to integrate with the brick and mortar and expertise of the health system partner that is exclusive and dedicated to that area,” Parker said at the time. “Sutter and Sentara are going to be integral to this strategy. They won’t only be our connected care partner for their markets, but also deeply involved in establishing some of our strategies.”

Sutter is in the midst of developing an Android version of the app as well. It's slated for release some time early this year.

“The Sutter Health app is the latest example in our long history of embracing hi-tech innovations to improve clinical care,” added Fry. “Over the years, we advanced care through the early adoption of the electronic intensive care unit, as well as smart IV pumps, bar-coding technology and automated medication dispensaries to help with the safe administration of medications. Our electronic medical record is one of the largest and most complex installs of Epic in the country. With this newest technological investment in our patients, we’re working to make care more convenient and accessible.”