Gary,
The original author of the tpsHL7CompareField proc (yours truly) did not code some of the features very wisely.  In all of the versions I have seen posted on the forum, a LIST argument must contain at least 1 value to be considered valid. 
Later versions of the proc contained a REGEXP option.  This would allow a Regular Expression to check for “1 or more” characters in a field.  Unfortunately, changes to our corporate policy make it more difficult to submit code to Clovertech.  Please e-mail me directly if you are interested in fixing the code.
- Mark Thompson
HealthPartners