Abstract: A method of optimizing a mechanical cardiac pumping device includes modeling the circulatory system of the patient who will receive the mechanical cardiac pumping device and identifying an operating condition of the native heart to which the device will respond. The model is used to determine the required blood volume to be ejected from the device and an initial estimate of the power required to be provided to the mechanical cardiac pumping device is provided in order to provide the required ejected blood volume. The resultant ejected blood volume is evaluated with data obtained from the model and the estimate of the power requirement is then updated. The above steps are iteratively performed until the power required to obtain the necessary ejected blood volume is identified.