Physician burnout remains a significant driver of turnover, creating challenges for patient access, workforce stability, and organizational performance. The American Medical Association (AMA) and clinician retention company Atalan have launched a research collaboration focused on advancing understanding of the factors that influence physician retention across U.S. health systems.

The two organizations are combing resources to launch the PROGRESS Study (Physician Retention, Optimization, and Growth: Real-world Evidence and Sentiment Synthesis), a multi-site research initiative aimed at helping health systems better understand the conditions that support physician retention, workforce stability, and organizational success.

The study will combine physician-reported data collected through the AMA Organizational Biopsy —an assessment framework and suite of services that helps organizations strengthen culture, support physician well-being, and improve practice environments — with workforce and practice data contributed by participating organizations. 

In January 2026 Healthcare Innovation interviewed Tiffany Chan, CEO and founder of Atalan. Her company’s platform analyzes operational data such as workload and EHR usage to predict clinician burnout and turnover with 70% accuracy up to a year in advance. Chan explained that the platform “taps into these operational data that health systems already have, and we use that to parse out where the signals of silence sufferers are, and identify them for the operational leaders at health system so that they can proactively support them before they get really burned out and leave the organization.”

Using Atalan’s Clinician Retention Intelligence (CRI) platform, researchers will examine how physician perceptions align, or diverge, from day-to-day practice realities and identify factors associated with retention, patient access, and team performance.

“Physician retention is one of the most pressing challenges facing health systems today,” said Chan in a statement. “This collaboration creates an opportunity to generate meaningful evidence on how physician experience relates to workforce retention and organizational performance at scale.”

“Health systems increasingly recognize that physician well-being, workforce stability, patient access, and organizational performance are closely connected,” said AMA President Willie Underwood III, M.D., MS.c., M.P.H., in a statement. “By bringing together physician perspectives and objective practice data, the PROGRESS Study aims to deepen understanding of the factors that shape the physician experience and influence long-term organizational success.”