Web hosting needs?

[admin]

Hello,

I am in the brainstorming phase of beginning a new online business. There are a lot of things I have yet to figure out, and I will likely be employing some partnerships in helping me realize my goals. Until then, I was hoping some could shed some light on the needs of my website hosting service...

My main concern is security. One of the ways I envision the business working is having my customers create memberships, and inputting sensitive health information data into a database form that I would be able to collect. In the end, I would submit a few documents to their account that would also contain sensitive data. I would like to avoid storing this information on a server, but so far the most efficient manner I can figure doing this involves communication through the website. I do not envision very heavy traffic, at least at first, and I would not be dealing with very much data at all (I'd be thrilled with 5-10 clients a week).

What type of hosting service do you all think I will need? I'm wanting to think that a dedicated server would be necessary, considering the sensitive data stored on the server (and also complying with the HIPAA legislation). However, the needs of my website from a traffic standpoint will be minimum. I'm trying to figure out the most cost effective way to run a very secure site. Also, does anybody have an opinion on which provider offers the most trustworthy service? Seems like every hosting business offers the standard SSL certificates and boasts of high security.

I'm not very experienced with website creation and hosting, so any input is appreciated. Also, any direction to some good additional resources for my particular situation would be great.