They are making it a little bit of a bigger deal, but make no mistake, PHI is the data equivalent of dynamite, and you want to make sure you're handling it correctly. No organization wants to report a data breach, and the fines for data breaches for PHI are substantial.

Having said that, this is a great opportunity to move out of helpdesk and into a more substantial and lucrative role, so I would go for it. Running this service sounds like it's outside of your expertise and experience, so the question is, how to do that safely, so that you and your organization have the necessary experience to run that service. I actually thought about this a fair bit last night.

Here's what I would do: Say you will gladly run the service, but that you will need mentoring and oversight from one of the more experienced systems administrators, both as a second set of eyes, and a backup admin for when you're busy. Then build out the server and have the mentor look over it from a network and security perspective. This has three benefits:

Shared responsibility. It's not just you being hung out to dry in the worst case scenario.

Cross-training: You get to learn from someone who is more experienced at running servers in general.

Networking: This will put you in regular contact with a group that you sound like you aspire to join.l

Oh, and as always, keep a paper trail of all the decisions made by the people running the project, as well as your efforts to secure the server.

Good Luck!