Stefan Kertesz, M.D., M.Sc., associate professor in the Department of Medicine’s Division of Preventive Medicine, is the senior faculty winner of the Dean’s Excellence Award in Service.
In Birmingham, Kertesz began homeless health care in 2003, including shelter work where he saw people often had problems accessing care. He published two community surveys to document the severity of the problem. Based on this, he developed one of the Veterans Administration’s first homeless-tailored primary care clinics, the Phoenix Clinic. He also developed the first patient experience questionnaire for care of the homeless, now used in clinics across the country, translated into Spanish and Chinese, and accepted by AHRQ’s National Quality Metrics Clearinghouse.