James Town receives Medical Data Science Pilot Award

Dr. James Town, associate professor (Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine) is PI on a 2025 award from the UW Institute for Medical Data Science (IMDS) for “Machine Learning-based Analysis of Auditory Signal Processing to Predict Extubation Failure in Patients with Severe Acute Brain Injury.”

Approximately 20% of patients with severe acute brain injury (SABI) who require mechanical ventilation are reintubated after an initial attempt at extubation.

Dr. Town and colleagues from UW Computer Science and Engineering, the Dept. of Neurology, and Google are building a multichannel sensor system to record the breathing sounds of patients with SABI after extubation and will analyze the recordings using a machine-learning algorithm to identify patterns associated with extubation failure.