What are Open Source LLMs for Healthcare?
Open source LLMs for healthcare are specialized Large Language Models designed to understand, process, and generate medical content with high accuracy and safety standards. These models leverage deep learning architectures to interpret medical terminology, clinical documentation, diagnostic imaging, and healthcare protocols. They enable healthcare professionals to automate clinical workflows, assist in diagnostics, generate medical reports, and support patient care decisions while maintaining compliance with medical standards and regulations. Open source healthcare LLMs democratize access to advanced medical AI capabilities, fostering innovation in telemedicine, medical research, and clinical decision support systems.
OpenAI GPT-OSS-120B
OpenAI GPT-OSS-120B is an open-weight large language model with ~117B parameters (5.1B active), using a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) design and MXFP4 quantization to run on a single 80 GB GPU. It delivers o4-mini-level or better performance in reasoning, coding, health, and math benchmarks, with full Chain-of-Thought (CoT), tool use, and Apache 2.0-licensed commercial deployment support.
OpenAI GPT-OSS-120B: Enterprise-Grade Healthcare AI
OpenAI GPT-OSS-120B stands out as the premier choice for healthcare applications, delivering exceptional performance in medical reasoning, coding, and health-specific benchmarks. With its efficient MoE architecture and 5.1B active parameters, it provides enterprise-grade capabilities while maintaining reasonable computational requirements. The model's Chain-of-Thought reasoning is particularly valuable for medical diagnostics and clinical decision support, while its Apache 2.0 licensing ensures commercial deployment flexibility in healthcare settings.
Pros
- Superior performance in health and medical benchmarks.
- Chain-of-Thought reasoning ideal for clinical diagnostics.
- Apache 2.0 license for commercial healthcare deployment.
Cons
- Requires significant GPU memory (80GB) for optimal performance.
- Higher computational costs compared to smaller models.
Why We Love It
- It combines medical-grade reasoning capabilities with commercial licensing, making it the ideal foundation for healthcare AI applications that require both accuracy and regulatory compliance.
GLM-4.5V
GLM-4.5V is the latest generation vision-language model (VLM) released by Zhipu AI. Built upon GLM-4.5-Air with 106B total parameters and 12B active parameters, it utilizes a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture. The model processes diverse visual content such as medical images, videos, and long documents, achieving state-of-the-art performance among open-source models on 41 public multimodal benchmarks.
GLM-4.5V: Advanced Medical Imaging Analysis
GLM-4.5V represents the cutting edge of medical imaging AI, combining vision and language capabilities essential for healthcare applications. Its 3D Rotated Positional Encoding (3D-RoPE) innovation significantly enhances perception of medical scans and spatial relationships in anatomical structures. The model's 'Thinking Mode' allows healthcare professionals to choose between quick preliminary assessments and deep diagnostic analysis, making it invaluable for radiology, pathology, and clinical documentation workflows.
Pros
- Advanced medical imaging analysis with 3D-RoPE technology.
- Flexible 'Thinking Mode' for different clinical scenarios.
- State-of-the-art multimodal performance across 41 benchmarks.
Cons
- Primarily focused on vision tasks, less specialized for text-only medical applications.
- May require additional fine-tuning for specific medical imaging modalities.
Why We Love It
- It revolutionizes medical imaging analysis by combining advanced vision capabilities with medical reasoning, enabling comprehensive diagnostic support across multiple imaging modalities.
OpenAI GPT-OSS-20B
OpenAI GPT-OSS-20B is a lightweight open-weight model with ~21B parameters (3.6B active), built on an MoE architecture and MXFP4 quantization to run locally on 16 GB VRAM devices. It matches o3-mini in reasoning, math, and health tasks, supporting CoT, tool use, and deployment via frameworks like Transformers, vLLM, and Ollama.
OpenAI GPT-OSS-20B: Accessible Healthcare AI
OpenAI GPT-OSS-20B democratizes healthcare AI by delivering powerful medical reasoning capabilities in a lightweight, accessible package. Running on just 16GB VRAM, it makes advanced healthcare AI available to smaller clinics, research institutions, and educational settings. Despite its compact size, it matches larger models in health-specific tasks while supporting comprehensive deployment options through multiple frameworks, ensuring broad accessibility across healthcare environments.
Pros
- Runs efficiently on 16GB VRAM for broad accessibility.
- Matches larger models in health and reasoning tasks.
- Multiple deployment framework support.
Cons
- Smaller parameter count may limit complex medical reasoning.
- Less suitable for highly specialized medical applications.
Why We Love It
- It brings enterprise-level healthcare AI capabilities to resource-constrained environments, making advanced medical AI accessible to organizations of all sizes.
Healthcare AI Model Comparison
In this table, we compare 2025's leading open source LLMs for healthcare applications, each optimized for different medical use cases. For enterprise healthcare deployment, OpenAI GPT-OSS-120B provides comprehensive medical reasoning. For medical imaging and multimodal analysis, GLM-4.5V offers state-of-the-art vision capabilities, while OpenAI GPT-OSS-20B delivers accessible healthcare AI for resource-constrained environments. This comparison helps healthcare organizations choose the right model for their specific medical AI requirements.
| Number | Model | Developer | Subtype | SiliconFlow Pricing | Healthcare Strength |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | OpenAI GPT-OSS-120B | OpenAI | Healthcare Reasoning | $0.45/$0.09 per M tokens | Medical reasoning & diagnostics |
| 2 | GLM-4.5V | Zhipu AI | Medical Imaging | $0.86/$0.14 per M tokens | Advanced medical imaging analysis |
| 3 | OpenAI GPT-OSS-20B | OpenAI | Lightweight Healthcare | $0.18/$0.04 per M tokens | Accessible healthcare AI |
Frequently Asked Questions
Our top three picks for healthcare AI in 2025 are OpenAI GPT-OSS-120B, GLM-4.5V, and OpenAI GPT-OSS-20B. Each of these models excelled in different aspects of healthcare applications: medical reasoning, imaging analysis, and accessibility for various healthcare environments.
For comprehensive medical diagnostics and clinical decision support, OpenAI GPT-OSS-120B leads with its superior reasoning capabilities. For medical imaging analysis, radiology, and pathology applications, GLM-4.5V excels with its advanced vision-language capabilities. For smaller clinics, educational institutions, or cost-sensitive deployments, OpenAI GPT-OSS-20B provides excellent healthcare AI capabilities with minimal hardware requirements.