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I have no problem with PCs knowing exactly how many hit points they have and how many hit points any other ally has. You can't really prevent metagaming here anyway since players can look at other players' character sheets and count damage if they feel like it. I also want to make absolutely certain that the players and I are in sync regarding how many hit points they have so there are no surprises when/if I tell them they're dead, etc.
When it comes to enemies or NPCs, I just describe roughly how healthy/damaged they look to the party. I use a roughly 100-75%, 75-25%, 25-5%, and 5-0% scale for variations in those descriptions and let the PCs know when one of those thresholds is crossed by describing the increased level of injury. If the PCs ask before the threshold is crossed, I just repeat roughly what I last said.
Sometimes my party mistakes which baddie has more HP or something to that effect and I do nothing to prevent them from making that mistake.
My interpretation of deathwatch is that it's primarily useful for determining the status of enemies or NPCs. Characters would and should talk to each other during combat IMO.