Real Estate Transactions - Held for Sale (Details) $ in Thousands	Jun. 30, 2018 USD ($) property facility	Dec. 31, 2017 USD ($) property
Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Additional Disclosures by Disposal Groups, Including Discontinued Operations [Line Items]
Number of properties classified as held for sale \| property	13
Assets held for sale, net	$ 692,702	$ 417,014
Accumulated depreciation	2,750,351	2,741,695
Held-for-sale
Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Additional Disclosures by Disposal Groups, Including Discontinued Operations [Line Items]
Assets held for sale, net	$ 693,000	$ 417,000
Held-for-sale \| SHOP
Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Additional Disclosures by Disposal Groups, Including Discontinued Operations [Line Items]
Number of properties classified as held for sale \| property	25	6
Held-for-sale \| Senior housing triple-net
Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Additional Disclosures by Disposal Groups, Including Discontinued Operations [Line Items]
Number of properties classified as held for sale \| property	11	2
Held-for-sale \| Life science
Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Additional Disclosures by Disposal Groups, Including Discontinued Operations [Line Items]
Number of properties classified as held for sale \| property	4	4
Held-for-sale \| Real Estate
Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Additional Disclosures by Disposal Groups, Including Discontinued Operations [Line Items]
Assets held for sale, net	$ 652,000	$ 393,000
Accumulated depreciation	$ 184,000	$ 93,000
Land \| Disposed of by sale
Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Additional Disclosures by Disposal Groups, Including Discontinued Operations [Line Items]
Number of properties classified as held for sale \| facility	1

The number of properties held for sale at the reporting date.

No definition available.

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- Definition

Amount classified as assets attributable to disposal group held for sale or disposed of.

+ References

Reference 1: http://fasb.org/us-gaap/role/ref/legacyRef
-Publisher FASB
-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 205
-SubTopic 20
-Section 45
-Paragraph 10
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Reference 5: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef
-Publisher FASB
-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 205
-SubTopic 20
-Section 50
-Paragraph 5C
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-URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=109222650&loc=SL51721675-107760

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- Definition

Line items represent financial concepts included in a table. These concepts are used to disclose reportable information associated with domain members defined in one or many axes to the table.

+ References

No definition available.

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- Definition

The cumulative amount of depreciation for real estate property held for investment purposes.

+ References

Reference 1: http://fasb.org/us-gaap/role/ref/legacyRef
-Publisher FASB
-Name Accounting Standards Codification
-Topic 944
-SubTopic 210
-Section S99
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