HOLYOKE — U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren toured the Holyoke Health Center on Thursday afternoon to meet with health care professionals and trainees who will benefit from the $1 million she helped secure in March to begin a workforce training facility.

“She (Warren) and Sen. Ed Markey were instrumental in helping secure $1 million to really jump-start this visionary project that we are doing in collaboration with all of the local academic institutions,” said Dr. Alejandro Esparza-Perez, CEO of Holyoke Heath.

The Regional Health Professions Education and Training Center, on the second floor of the historic Steiger building across from City Hall, will train the next generation of health care professionals to help fill the shortage of medical workers in the state. The facility will work closely with local academic institutions, including Holyoke Community College, to ensure the new health care workforce is locally based and community-oriented.

“I’m very proud to be from Massachusetts when we go to Washington, for a lot of reasons, but one of them is how much we really are the cutting edge and the proof of concept for where we can go with health care,” Warren said to a group of nurse practitioner trainees. “There are other parts of the country that are just now waking up to the possibilities, and we’re already showing the next generation how to train the workers we need.”

Holyoke Health Center already offers training and mentorship programs for young health care professionals, like the Family Nurse Practitioner Residency program and On-the-Job Training Dental Assistant program. This new educational center will extend offerings to what Esparza-Perez calls allied health care professionals, health care positions that assist doctors and dentists in their work.

“I think after COVID, we really saw a huge impact in those positions, and they’re very difficult to fill,” he said. “It’s not just a benefit for Holyoke Health Center, but it’s a benefit for the region, which is what gets them more excited about because we it’s not just about us, it’s about the community.”

A shortage of practitioners in the Pioneer Valley hinders access in the health care, leading to four- to six-month wait times just to get an appointment with a primary care doctor.

Turnover rates in the medical field remain high in Massachusetts: a survey from Center for Health Information and Analysis estimates the turnover rate for registered nurses in the state is around 29%.

“The reality of that entering that very high-need setting when you are a brand new graduate is daunting and overwhelming and a recipe for burnout, which we know primary care struggles with,” said Faith Woodside, a member of Holyoke Health Center’s Family Nurse Practicer Residenty Program. “You cannot learn the challenges of working truly within a community and how the social determinants of health impact care and well-being in a classroom.”

At each stop on the tour, Warren spoke to the trainees at the facility to learn more about the importance of these training programs. Their stories, she explained, are key to bring back to the Senate to help secure more federal funding for similar programs around the state.

“Without more health care professionals, the whole system will break apart, and the innovative approaches used here to both recruit and train those professionals should be a model for the whole country,” Warren said.