PURPOSE:
This abstract presents the experience of midwives in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) using digital tools, specifically the Nurse Nisa chatbot and the Hesperian Safe Abortion app, to expand access to contraception and safe abortion services. It highlights how these technologies strengthen patient education, clinical decision-making, and real-time data collection in sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services.

DISCUSSION:
In DRC, adolescent girls and young women face multiple barriers to accessing accurate and nonjudgmental SRH information and care. Digital solutions offer new pathways to bridge these gaps. Nurse Nisa, developed by Ipas DRC, is an anonymous, interactive chatbot that provides users with essential information about contraception, safe abortion, postabortion care, and reproductive rights. It is especially popular among youth and women living in urban and peri-urban areas. In parallel, the Hesperian Safe Abortion application offers clinical reference materials in multiple languages, supporting midwives with updated protocols and guidance for providing respectful, rights-based abortion care. These tools are integrated into training and supervision programs, enhancing midwives’ capacity to deliver comprehensive, woman-centered SRH services, particularly in low-resource settings.

EVIDENCE WHERE RELEVANT:
Since 2022, more than 4,000 users engaged with Nurse Nisa, 58% of them under the age of 20, reflecting strong uptake among young people. In parallel, 75 midwives were trained to use both platforms. These midwives reported improvements in counseling quality, communication with youth, and confidence in clinical decision-making. The Nurse Nisa dashboard also provides real-time data that informs health messaging strategies by identifying trends and frequent user concerns. This enables midwives to adapt their education and outreach accordingly.

KEY MESSAGE:
The integration of Nurse Nisa and Hesperian into midwives’ practice in DRC enhances both access to accurate SRH information for youth and clinical capacity for providers. These tools represent scalable innovations that support midwives as frontline educators and care providers in advancing reproductive justice through technology. Poster session 1 (Group A)