MIMIC-III: How the patients take their prescriptions exactly?

Question

For example, there are three prescriptions for a patient named Jam:

prescription 1: Drug A, startdate: 2016-08-01, enddate: 2016-08-08,

prescription 2: Drug B, startdate: 2016-08-03, enddate: 2016-08-09,

prescription 3: Drug C, startdate: 2016-08-05, enddate: 2016-08-09.

In my understanding, Jam will only take drug A on the first two days (08-01 to 08-02), and then he will take both drug A and drug during 08-03 to 08-04, then he take three drug (A, B, C) until 08-08. On 08-09, he will take B and C.

Am I right about the meaning of startdate and enddate of one prescription?

Or otherwise the later prescriptions will replace the prior one which means that Jam only takes drug B during 08-03 to 08-05 and he only takes drug C during 08-08 to 08-09?

Someone has any idea about the correct explanation?

Answer 1

Active prescription orders:
Drug (A): 08-01 to 08-02
Drug (A, B): 08-03 to 08-04
Drug (A, B, C): 08-05 to 08-08
Drug (B, C): 08-09

Keep in mind that the prescriptions table is a record of medications that were ordered. It does not indicate whether or not the medication was administered. This data is extracted from a Computerized Physician Order Entry ('CPOE') system.